Board of Aldermen - Regular Meeting

Ouch. Call to order um the uh budget workshop for the town of North Thompson Beach. Uh just remind everybody um and I'll read this. It's a special meeting for a budget workshop. It's not a meeting where we are going to um make decisions, take action, or address issues outside of reviewing the stuff for the fiscal year. Um and also just a reminder to ourselves and to the people we represent about the responsibilities of the board members. The members of the governing board have a fiduciary responsibility to the unit's taxpayers and residents to manage funds and the unit appropriately. um were ultimately responsible for the finances and fiscal health of the year. The way that I see it and I think that we see it is we have this obligation to the taxpayers and residents of the town. Um but I also believe we want to treat our employees fairly and consistently with making sure that we can keep our members safe. Um the other thing that I would ask um as our management team comes up um and they're here today as we go through this thing um we are dealing with a situation where um social security is giving about a 2.8% increase this year. We've got people on fixed incomes to the extent because you are the people that run this town. to the extent that you've got ideas as to how we can save money and saving money can be things like um Alice the stormwater deal where we got a million dollars to do those projects or the phase 4 things or uh wiring things and doing other things ourselves. I think that's important that you point those things out as you're making your presentation and we would look to you to come back to us whether it's now or at some future point and say, "Look, here's ways I can do that. If I need a new vehicle, I've got a grant that we can apply for." Those type of things. All those things go to allowing us to both meet our

fiduciary obligations, uh, but also to treat our employees fairly. With that, I'm going to turn it over to Larry. I think he's going to turn it over to Wayne, but we'll start with Larry. Thank you, mayor.

Okay. Good morning, uh, mayor and board members. Boy, it sounds loud. Um, we provided an agenda to you that highlights, you know, suggested order for, uh, this this today's budget session. I mean, if if the need or want exists to diverge from that, that's certainly fine. But uh um what we're prepared to is basically go through this uh outline and basically at the top u give you offer you a overview of some of the principles and assumptions that we've used to uh uh organize the uh draft budget um and and give you a recap of what uh what what we understand uh transpired at your previous budget session. Uh I'd like to offer some comments and insights on forecasting um challenges associated with sales taxes u uh and then uh move into um uh department level review of operating budgets. Um and we what we hope to get today or at a subsequent budget session is a consensus from the board on uh um initiatives items you know uh associated with the department spending plans.

Before Before you leave that just to make clear we have another session tentatively scheduled for tomorrow. Yes. Um because there are some peculiarities that we just talked about that may change some things. Um, I think that you're going to also maybe have alternatives dates in May to meet again, but then we also have to have a public hearing which is scheduled currently, we talked about in May. Um, and then adoption of the budget in June. So, we do have some time in there uh because this, as you know, is a very fluid type of thing right now given things that are going on in the counties. So,

very true. Um, so the uh a wild card, if you will, is uh we've we've invited Doug Carter to uh be here today. He estimate we're not sure exactly when he's going to arrive. Uh we had hoped to introduce him earlier in the in the day's conversation. U his estimated time of arrival is 11. And so uh you know whoever's you know whatever department is is uh um reviewing their budget with you. I would encourage the mayor maybe to allow that individual to wrap it up and then maybe introduce Doug uh to uh provide his his thoughts on the modeling and so forth. Uh and then lastly, mayor stole my thunder, but uh I kind of wrap up uh with a conversation on the budget calendar as it stands and what it may need to do and shift and so forth. And so, uh, in in the agenda, uh, kind of lot a lot of detail there, but, uh, some ideas, uh, on where, uh, we may, um, uh, shift or adjust or add some sessions. So, with that, um, I'd like to introduce, um, Wayne. Uh, Wayne is right there.

There you go. All right, Wayne, it's all yours. So, just to kind of um recap a little bit of let me just just interrupt just real quick. You've given us a bunch of spreadsheets, right? Including the one I think that you're going to you're going to use for us. So, if you will when you're going when you're going through it, will you reference which spreadsheet? I mean, I've got them all up my computer and apparently I just got to copy this, but for us to follow you, I think when we're looking at So, thanks. I don't know.

Yeah, when we get to that um as we go through each department spreadsheet, Ricky will be have it up on the screen, but sometimes it's hard to follow spreadsheets with multiple columns on even on a screen. So, that's why we provided a paper copy if folks want to follow along on paper it might be easier. So, um but just a quick recap. Um so we did we're using uh some of the discussions and and where the the budgets that are in front of us proposed by the departments are now. Um looking at the ad valorum uh we did go back and calculate using the formula in the state statute the revenue neutral rate and it came in a lot of decimals but just under 36 cents based on the statute calculation. Um, so that's where on our revenue sheets, we kind of use that as the stopping point for going back to a revenue neutral number. Um, and there's a lot of components involved in that. Um, and we can go into more detail or uh I could have after the meeting have Noren uh email the spreadsheet that we had to put together to run that formula. Um,

Wayne, just to interrupt you again, that would be helpful because that's not the number I came up with. Um, I came up with a much smaller number than that because I said if we have a 40% increase in property values, then by definition 60% of the current tax rate, 60% of 43 is about is a little less than 30 cents would be how we got I'll send a copy of the the spreadsheet that we ran after we're done here and Norine has that. Just make a note, please. Um but that's the number that's embedded in your spreadsheet under revenue.

Yeah. Yeah. In in the summary sheet of the revenues uh for fund 10 the general fund 12 capital improvement and 30 shoreline protection. Uh that is that number that we used. We did not go backwards from there. Um at this point we we can but we did not. Um the sales tax revenue projection. I know Larry's going to get into some detail here in a few minutes on the nuances with that. Um the projection that we used with the sales tax that's in our uh revenue worksheet here. Um we basically have uh in working with uh GWI there. There is a revenue sales tax revenue spreadsheet as we've been collecting it that tracks it and then brings into account um the few months from the previous year because the way sales tax is paid out, you're a couple months behind and we put that all together to give a projection of where estimated on our spreadsheet that that we should land with sales tax. Um again that calculation can be done in a different manner if if yall so choose to instruct us to do that. Uh most of the other revenues held constant um and we saw most of those last time. Uh a couple things that we did adjust in the um the department level spreadsheets. uh did some uh research with Larry uh town man in town manager and uh based on the Southern Atlantic Census Division we went back and input a colar rate of 2.9%. Um and a merit rate of up to 3.5%. Uh what we also did uh and this is based on uh the fact that there's been the request to do the uh salary research uh for the for the time being the um the

market adjustments were removed pending an outcome from that salary uh survey which most likely would be into next year. It won't probably there's no way we'll get it done before the June cutoff. Uh so those are removed for now. Um and then uh as it we had it last time the medical uh medical expenses were assumed at about a 10% increase based on discussions with our insurance carrier. Uh pensions uh based on the instruction from the uh the league it is now for non LEO is 15.17 uh and for LEO is 17.10 10 and the 401k. There's no change there. Uh, a lot of these other than the cola and merit were were the the other estimated increases were in the spreadsheets last time at the last meeting, but there were some minor updates to what are in the department level spreadsheets at this time. We did not at this point uh change or remove any um of the general requests from the department heads. The only the only changes that I made in those spreadsheets was the the cola and merit and the salary adjustment. So, as far as what they feel like they need to operate their department or equipment is still in there and they'll address those as they're before you when their turn comes up.

Just a just a couple of quick ones. There's a there's a typo then on your main uh in your overall spreadsheet under description fund 10, you got includes police and fire adjustments plus cola plus merit. That's not true. So because I couldn't find the calculation for the other adjustments and I apologize. No, it's fine. It's fine. We're we're we're working through this kind of stuff. So that's not in there. Medical you said is 10%. Currently we're paying about 9750 I think per employee. So that's going to be So that's been adjusted as well. So it'll be about it'll be about 11,000

10% in our insurancees. When I say medical, I'm referring to our insuranceances. Um that yes, that's adjusted. And there's actually a a uh department level, if you will, uh worksheet for just the insuranceances. Okay. And the 10% was fac I want to turn it over to Larry, but um in spending time on this late last night, um and as everybody knows, I like to look at the numbers. Um, I've got some real questions about some of the revenues that are in there. Um, and how they relate to current operations and stuff which we can do as we go through, Larry. We can do those as we go through because I've got a list of stuff that I've I've got questions about what the assumptions were underneath on the revenue side. I didn't the expense side was was one thing, but I wanted to look at the revenue side as well. So,

okay. So, Lar, I guess Larry, it's you. Yes, sir. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. Uh, thank you, Wayne. So, I'd like to offer the board an overview of a of two sales tax distribution methods and the potential impact of changes in the advorum levy or or private tax revenues may have on sales tax receipts that are distributed to each jurisdiction in Anzo County. So, municipal sales tax, you know, by way of background, municipal sales tax receipts are affected by basically two elements. the method of distribution which we're I'm going to talk about um which is determined by the county. The other is the amount of sales taxes that are collected which relates to basically the health of the economy and you know the stronger the economy we would we would assume or expect sales tax revenues to increase. basic basic assumption and in terms of our projections we we are assuming that the economy improves and so we've see increase in sales or we've factored in a sales tax increase

and I and I think I mentioned to you I talked to the finance director on Monday county is going to go flat on sales tax forecast so

understand um uh so um before I describe the two methods of distribution I'd like to highlight um at a high level the elements forming the sales tax line item which are referred to as local sales and use taxes. Uh in North Carolina, local sales and use taxes are collected by the state and they distributed to local governments according to a statutory uh formula. There are four articles or elements that make up the local option sales taxes in Anzo County that totals two and a quarter%. The countywide sales tax of two and a quarter is applicable to localities county in addition to the four and 3/4% um set by North Carol Carolina the state that serves as a total of of 7%. The rate applies to most taxable goods and services in Anzo County including retail sales, restaurant meals excluding prepared meals which are taxed separately and certain services. the uh the two methods from which North Carolina counties may choose between for distributing sales tax receipts are dictated, if you will. And uh the general statute 105472 and I provided uh or Lexi provided a handout that that is the this that provides you an illustration of the statute. Uh, but on the first page is a a table that I'll uh uh I'll be generally referring to and I'll get to that in a little more detail in a second. Thank Thank you, Lexi. Um so uh though the two methods of of distribution the counties may choose between are per capita or population-based which is used to determine north uh North Topsel Beach's population as a percentage of all jurisdictions in Nanzo County and the sum of the

unincorporated areas unincorporated areas of the county. And so that's where we get there are seven entities that are are in the pie so to speak for either actually either per capita basis or avalorum basis. So the other other method of distribution for sales tax is Avalor or or the the uh property tax revenues if you will. Uh and that's used uh to determine North Topsville's Beach's um percentage of the entire levy collected or property taxes collected across the seven jurisdictions. Okay. In either method, the percent that North Top Soul Beach has uh an advalorum or if you use per capita is applied to the total sales tax receipts in a given period and that's decided to that's that's how it's distributed monthly, quarterly, semianual, whatever, whatever the basis might be. Um so in the handout that I provided is a table I referenced a little bit ago that illustrates um jurisdictions, our populations, property values and uh the tax rates as of um uh current fiscal year. And I used that th those data that data to to estimate and approximate what um the distribution would be for sales tax revenues under either basis. Uh the message I guess I'm going to hammer over and over again is if you follow the highlighted line which is North Topsul Beach, you see uh the second column is our population. You see a a small number a percent that is a half a percent. That's our relative size to everybody

else. Next column is the uh value mention that's like registered voters. That's not people that are population. It's actually population, not registered voters. Population. I'm sorry, but I mean the people that actually live in the town, right? Yes. Census numbers.

Yes. and that to that point um the the source you know um you know there's there's a lot of moving targets in this conversation in terms of estimating forecasting the revenues um um my source for populations the the source is the state demographer not Google not AI not um Joe next door it's state demographer okay so that's that's those numbers um and the uh property values an assumption um there's information that that I got access to that I think came from the county dated um uh from March and so I'm presuming that's the property values uh the re reassessed values so an assumption but um u so everything else is you know um

that's what I sent you

yes yes yes um so following across the line there Um the estimate of our um um advalorum revenues as part of the whole is roughly 4%. So 4% on an ad a valorum basis of distribution versus a half a percent on a per capita. The punchline is uh our community stands to receive a larger share of sales tax revenues sales tax under an avalorum basis. Um and that's that's that that trend is is um probably you know decades in in existence. beach communities tend to have a higher uh property value as compared to um some of our inland colleagues and peers. Okay. Um so uh to say it a little bit differently, North Topsville Beach loses sales tax revenue under per capita, gains revenue and ad with lower and basis. Uh over the years this the distribution method has been contested. um those with uh that have been associated with government in some form of fashion. You remember uh um the drama over the years. Uh when I first came to North Carolina, I was working for the city of Jacksonville and u there was an interlocal agreement between the county and the city that um um uh was focused on using the uh per capita basis um and um which created a windfall if you will for the city of Jacksonville. They had annexed the the the details of the city had annexed the base population years ago. So early 90s I believe and uh so basically doubled the size of the community without the corresponding double in ser service demand or cost. So it's a windfall. Beach communities

typically you know lost or property tax. Right. Right. Base doesn't pay.

Right. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So there's no no impact on the base and so a lot of communities around bases did that kind of thing. whatever it was, late late 80s, early 90s, um that uh that relationship. And so the the city received um um you know, double um and uh there was an interlocal agreement that was framed um that um continued that but uh uh allowed this or required the city to to return some of that sales tax money to the county. So there what I would commonly well I'm not going to say the word but uh it was there was a deal and uh it was good for the for the city of Jacksonville not necessarily for anybody else or with the county and the city but not for others um for north tops beach that uh that relationship evolved and we got to uh the point we are now where avalorum is used and an indication is that that's going to continue. So

just if you would clarify for people, it's when you're talking about the property taxes, it's property taxes collected is the basis for that. So to the extent and I think what you're telling is to the extent that you collect less property taxes, you may by definition get less sales taxes based upon Exactly. Okay.

Exactly. Yes. Um um so in in a revaluation year, which what we're in, uh the potential impact on sales tax receipts are are somewhat amplified, uh in in in a revaluation year, most communities experience an increase in property taxes. We or values, excuse me. And uh certainly we we have we've exhibited I think all of us have gotten that that that um love letter from the county saying your your your residence has gone up in value. I I certainly didn't. Um, so, um, North Topsil Beach's sales tax receipts would, um, if everyone Oh, I've gotten ahead of myself. So, um, so I'd like to explore some hypotheticals to kind of dramatize the point that the mayor just just made. Um, so these are hypotheticals. There are a number of assumptions that I use to get to um, these uh, financial numbers. Okay. So, um the details are subject to change. So, I I would like to emphasize that. So, hypothetical, if every community adopted the revenue neutral tax rate and the county continues using the Avaloran method of sales tax distribution, our sales tax receipts would approximate the current year with with a factor we're assuming for growth. Okay. Um Wayne, I don't know if you have that number about about we figured about three 400,000.

Yeah.

Okay. Approximately. Okay. So, however, if the largest jurisdictions, i.e. Enslow, Jacksonville, um adopts a tax rate above the revenue neutral rate for the next fiscal year, we could expect to see a reduction in sales tax receipts. Okay? And it's a factor of how how how many pennies above revenue neutral do those two jurisdictions got um they control they have uh current current size of the pie they are about 90% of the avalorum pie okay u there are as I mentioned earlier seven jurisdictions that are in you know in this um uh in this box um and you all all know better than I do. Highly rich, Jacksonville, North Tops, ourselves, Richlands, Surf City, Swansville, and the county as an organization. So again, in a reeval reval year, it's not unusual for communities to call a special meeting for the purpose of setting the tax rate on or about June 30th. And the question was, why wait till the end? So we have a the best idea of what everyone else is doing. and um and whether or not we we need to or want to adjust what we thought we were going to set the tax rate at to um minimize the um multiple hits on revenue. So that's I mean that's tactical and political decision that

and and what we've talked about just so people know is th this is not a a simple I get revenue here or I get revenue there and whether the impact on us is positive or negative on the revenue side. If you give up sales tax revenue it's because you are collecting less property taxes from your residents. So the the positive in that is in and I'm going to use a ratio. We talked about it's almost an 8 to1 type of relationship. So if we were to drop our property taxes by using the 2.4 $240,000, all right, we would only be giving up, what's my math? $30,000 in sales tax. So again, that's something the board needs to take into account is one hits our local taxpayers and property owners, the other one hits our revenue, right? And I would use your example on here um just and and again, you've you've done a great job explaining this because this is something we've been talking about for years because people thought we were getting screwed by not getting money back and this shows why this allocation occurs. But if you drop down to the spreadsheet we were talking about before, Wayne, um, and you're looking at the sales tax, you've shown that at, uh, revenue neutral, it's 29. At 43, it's 33. Um, at 40 it's 34. So there is an absolute, if you look at that spreadsheet on there, you'll see exactly what uh what Larry just described. And but a subtle point I think um to the mayor and I'm looking at Wayne um we did not we did not factor in on the sales tax revenue. We held that constant under each tax rate level.

Yes. Yes. So we we we're we're working on a model to try to you know work work that it's hard to do it in real time um to adjust. So this is a difference between forecast and actual. Yeah. Okay. I just want to make sure because one of the things that that you've pointed out today is we have a lot of putting aside the expense side because we can get a pretty good handle on the expense side. The revenue side is a very fluid type of thing at this point. This year I would say yes

right is what he's talking about. So um understanding that you know money is not guaranteed to come in at the levels we're talking about um is a big part of what you're talking about. So that while we may have a public hearing, may do those type of things, it may be better for us to delay what the actual tax rate is within a penny or two, right? Um as close to what we know other people are doing. And we don't know um had the county has not disclosed what they're planning on doing tax rate. Um I have no idea what the other towns are planning on doing. Um which is why there's so many variables in your calculation. Correct. Yes.

Um sense to everybody moving target. Go ahead. So, knowing it's a moving target though, the board during the fiscal year at any time with board approval can make adjustments to the budget. Not the tax rate. Not the tax rate, but departmental budgets to our expenses. So if we see revenues dropping, you know, that we hadn't expected, we can shift fund money around in funds with board approval. Right. Okay. So what I'm saying is what we approve in the beginning is not set in stone. No. And we can make adjustments during the fiscal year. Right.

And I think the perfect example of that that you've brought up before is if we have a storm event. Correct. Right. that's going to impact rentals, that's going to impact everything, recession, all those type of things. So,

and I would I would I would suggest or expect that um um whether it was myself or the permanent that y'all decide to hire would would with Wayne's insights and and finger on pulse of what's happening would come to the board and say, "Okay, you know, we're we're we're seeing the trends the trends the revenue trends are are we thought they were X. They're looking like it's X minus Y. Um and and we need to you know we need to adjust defer you know regroup on stuff. Sure.

And I want to make that point to the department heads too that you know as things move along just because we adopt a budget doesn't mean there can't be adjustments during the fiscal year

and and the discretion of town manager on on right items too. Well, I'm just from a practical standpoint, I think, you know, Wayne uh Wayne I would suspect Wayne's going to see, you know, between the manager uh and Wayne, they're going to see, okay, there's there there's something sales tax aren't coming in. That's typically, you know, um an area because property taxes is, you know, that's like what like uh November, December, January. So, you're pretty well into the year expense wise. But sales tax you get uh I mean every I forget I think month there's some that come in monthly some come in quarterly but it's in a rears the sales tax

that's that's the issue it's it's going to be three months before Wayne knows what the stuff was if it's if we're going from July 1st to September 30th you're not going to know until October November what you got right well we're we're getting distributions though um yes so so I from from a revenue receipt standpoint, you're, you know, monthly and quarterly, you're going to see, you'll see a trend and um and and uh so those are kind of property tax, sales tax the biggest and I guess franchise uh is um but that tends to uh mirror sales tax. Um but anyway, so um

but I think Laura makes a good point which is given the uncertainty in the market and the things that are going on today, we can give a guideline if you want to call it an approved budget. Okay, understanding that changes. We've did it last year. We made it budget adjustments a number of times. We've done change orders, all those type of things. The thing is, don't commit something for next May if we don't have to commit if we're not really sure in September what's going on is kind of the long and short of it. So anyway, I'm laboring the point. Thank you.

To continue the hypotheticals, may mayor mayor mentioned a couple of ones that I was going to highlight. I would emphasize that uh we estimate currently estimate that 1 cent change in in our tax rate will affect uh the avalorum or property tax revenues by approximately 250,000. Um Wayne's nodding his head. Okay. So we're 24. So one is

yeah it's around there 1 cent change or increase. This is a hypothetical in all jurisdictions tax rate except North Topsville beaches would change North Topsill's sales tax receipts by approximately $200,000. Okay, that's if everybody in the big I mean it's really really it's the two communities, but the the way I ran the analysis made that assumption for everybody. Um, what you're saying is the 800lb gorilla is Enslow County in Jacksonville. Yes, sir. That's what's going to drive the calculation. Is that fair, Wayne? That that's that's the two gorillas.

And as as the mayor mentioned, you know, one one a one cent change in North Topsel Beach's tax rate. And if everybody else kept revenue neutral, uh, our sales tax receipts would change, you know, somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 to 40,000. Um we estimate. Okay. So wrapping this up. Um conclusion property tax rates set by North Topsville Beach for 20 next fiscal year will have a marginal or minor impact on the percentage of sales tax receipts received by North Topsville Beach because we're we're we're either either method of distribution. We're we're small in relation to the everyone else. Um, however, the larger jurisdictions of Enso and Jacksonville can have a more significant impact on percentage of sales tax receipts that we would uh hope to receive. This is due to Enzo and Jacksonville having roughly 90% of the Avalorum levy that's collected from all of the jurisdictions in Oslo County. So, we've probably we've been saying this, you know, throughout the conversation, but uh that's uh that's that's the punch line. So, with that, um I think I'm turning it back over to Wayne.

Yeah, I think um if we could what we do now is go through the different department um spreadsheets and and budget requests. Uh, and for the sake of letting uh helping Ricky too to follow us to pull these up on the screen, this is the same order that your packet is in and probably the order that your files are in if you choose to pull them up uh because they run alphabetical. So the first one would be the governing body 410 which is you all. Okay. Yeah. We'll start on that summary sheet, Ricky. So, again, this is the governing body. Uh, this is the summary sheet. Um, you know,

I'm sorry. So, we're not we're not going to do the high level thing first. You're going to go by department first. Uh, I was going to go by department first. Um, that was just just fine. That's fine. We have it in because I think this is this is our income statement right here. Yes. Okay. So, as long as we get that sometime because that's going to tie into this. Yes. And what you're doing is you're giving us the the foundation for this right to these seen at the bottom. Yeah. All right. And also, is that is that okay with everybody or do you want to see the income statement first?

And that's fine. Um, and I also think when Doug gets here, part of Doug's uh discussions and and information may tie into what you want to talk about on the the income statement type summary. So, But everything you're going to give us now is on the expense side, not on the revenue side. Yes. This is the requested expenses per department. Perfect. Okay. Yeah.

So, um looking at the governing body, uh this is the summary sheet that we're all looking at here. Um there is not a tremendous amount of change. Um the there is a little bit that was added in for uh the travel line. Uh and again that that was kind of an estimate based on some um travel that you all may be doing for different conferences and things this this upcoming year training. Um if you'd like to we can step through the detail of what each one of those numbers is which would be what is is your backup pages there. Um,

I mean, I think some of some of this is self-explanatory, but um, we're attempting to do strategic planning. Are we thinking of putting that under the governing body or are we thinking of putting that in administration? Where are we looking at budgeting for some strategic planning expenses? Um I believe let me find professional services. It would fall under professional services now. Um but we don't have do we have a line item for that with the governing body?

Yes, we do. Um looking at that summary sheet, it's twothirds of the way down 10-410-47. Okay. Um and there is a detail on the back. Uh some of that is our existing like legal and retainers. Um but we could add uh at this point I don't have numbers as far as consultants or different things that we want to add in there. But I I could add something in there. I think on that one I would go back to what Laura talked about before. Yeah. Once we know what that's going to cost, then we can make a budget amendment on it because the big thing in here is we don't have GWI in there. And is this based this is based upon the original budget or is this based upon the amendments made to

the budget? Yeah. So th this was run on the current budget which uh in your spreadsheet it's the first set of numbers current budget year. Okay. Let me make it simple. We made a budget adjustment last year for GWI for a couple hundred thousand dollar, right? That's in the current year budget. So, no, no, no, no. GWI has taken out the in the current year budget. Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. All right. So, the drop in this thing, frankly, when I look at it, this is basically what it what it was before with less professional services involved. Well, most of the professional services from GWI were in the administration budget. Okay, that that's where that falls. that goes from like 437 down to 48.

It's not in the governing budget. It's not in in the governing bud. So, but when I look at this stuff, and I'm going to go back to a point again that Laura made. When I look at something that says professional services, or I'm going to use an example of our council, we've got a number in here for counsel, that doesn't mean we're going to spend it. We're This is just a budget hold. So, to the extent that we need it for something else within professional services, if we need to do a budget amendment, we can. Yeah, we can do budget amendments throughout the year. We've we've done many throughout this current year. That's my point. So this is basically again to your point a glazeholder for the expenses going forward that we'll take a look at as the year goes on. Right. Okay. And these are based if you if you want to see the detail of it if you look on your backup sheets right

these columns that go across show you what the detail is under each number. So it's a little bit it's it's a lot because the spreadsheet has a lot of columns in it. Um but for example the professional services is is the um uh lawyers the lawyers uh the fairest retainer feleris retainer so it gives you the line item detail of what that total number equals up to. So, and these are based on estimates of of known costs. As you said, if we came up and decided to hire a consultant for uh five years,

when we look at the salary, the compensation study, are we going to put that in administration? Uh the the the administration the contracted services that I probably would Okay. It would be probably the best fit for that. Okay. Um, and again, that would probably be something we would add at the time that we do do it. It's not forecasted in here when we get to the administration departmental budget. Um, that's fine because we haven't approved it yet because we don't know how much it costs. Right. Right. So, that that's that's the point we last time is they're going to get back to us at the next meeting with some idea. We reaching out. Yeah. If we reach out and get a cost estimate, I can get it plugged in for for the next

in 2019. What did we spend? Does anybody know? We never did it, but we got numbers before my time. No, we don't know. Yeah, I am not sure what we spent in 2019 for the salary study. I know it was looked into last year, but then never executed. I I would say that 2019 numbers aren't wouldn't be relevant. I mean, it would be double. I'm looking for a placeholder at some point. So, we we I will we'll work towards that. I mean, our intent would be to have a a number in the proposed budget

um based on the um the feeling that the board is supportive of doing a salary survey classification study. Um uh I mean I it wouldn't surprise me to see a number um you know $50,000. Um that would not surprise me. Um may may see it for 30, but it would not surprise me for 50. or or or perhaps more. But uh but we're you know we we've got some calls out and we hope to get an informal number to finish that one up. You want to put that in administration, not under governing body. I would I mean it could fit in either category. Um,

I think administrative work, but again, great. I think as we're going through this though, I think one of the things I would suggest we not start putting placeh orders in here from things we don't know how much they cost and that because this is our first No, I just want the title, you know, not the number. I want us to not forget on the parking lot. That's a project we want to do. And then we find the number. Well, but okay, let me back up to what we're doing today.

We are not making a decision on the parking lot. We are not making a decision on this compensation study because this is not the forum to do those type of things. This is discussion about the stuff that's in the budget right now. And then in a couple of weeks when we have our board meeting, we can discuss what we need to get done after we get some numbers because otherwise we're going to be putting things. This is coming from the team to give us an idea of what the expenses are. Right.

Right. So, I think we need to be careful otherwise, you know, if and I I don't I don't know what the board consensus is on a parking lot. I don't know what the you know, I think that we talked about doing a compensation study, but again, that that was along the lines of not knowing how much it cost, right? If it's a million dollars, we're not doing it. If it's $2, we're going to do it. We know what the bid and asked is. So, I think we need to and you'd ask me to make sure we stay on track with what we're trying to get through with this. So if you will Wayne go ahead.

Yeah. So I mean as far as the governing body being the these are the the cost estimates and and projections based on the activity that that has gone on. Um in some instances there were some minor adjustments like I said anticipating some travel and conferences for you all. So that came up. So, I mean, I would suggest at this point if there's anything that's a question to dial in, but we have a lot of departments, so I don't know that we want to just sit here and go line by line, detail by detail, unless there's a question on it um at this point. And as they come up, we'll address them. So, I could move on from governing body if nobody has a question on on this particular spreadsheet.

A question. Is there consensus on the uh governing body's uh budget as presented? Mark, Kip, Connie, Laura. Yeah, Larry. Okay. Find somewhere to put some things.

Okay. Um Ricky, we're going to the next in line, which should be administration. and we'll start on that summary page. Um, so again, as far as I mean, starting general expenses, uh, a lot of these are are just general operating expenses. Most of them carry over to be pretty similar. Um, we'll we'll talk about the salary lines in just a second. the um you do see in the contracted services it's like fourth from the bottom went from 437 down to 48. Uh that was where GWI consulting sat. So that was a significant reduction. Um

okay.

Yeah. Yeah. Um most of the other line items, the trainings, just general expenses, um are are pretty much neutral. Um there were a few things that we were able to even save a few dollars like the the apparel expense um is coming in much less than what we budgeted. So we were able to reduce a little bit there um without the detriment to having things available for for citizens or tourists to buy. Um now the salary line um let me get over here. So currently the the salary line is uh and Ricky if you'll go to the base request tab to the far left to where you'll see all the salaries. Um these are the current positions that sit in administration. Um

I'm sorry and the current salaries. Yes, this is the current salaries. That's that's what because it's the math doesn't work. All what you're showing in the base case is what exists today and what is in the budget today. Yeah. And and this is what we're requesting to carry forward any expansion the on the spreadsheet. Don't go there yet Ricky but it's the green column the green tab and that's where you would see your calculations for cola and merit.

Okay. So this is the salary and these are the positions that exist in um the administration department right now. Um pretty self-explanatory. The town manager uh town clerk, the finance officer, accountant one is Norine. Um we currently have Would you do me a favor? Let's let's not use people's names. Okay. Okay. Okay. Positions. Positions find. Um understood. I'm sorry.

Um, we have the accounts payable position. That is the one that I requested that we add. We brought in through a temp service somebody to to help us with that on a temp to hopefully permanent basis and it would make sense to make that transition in July when we come out with the new budget. Um, he currently is is on a temporary contract through a staffing service. So, we have him until that point. Um but it is a vital position. Accounts payable handles all all the invoices, all the payouts, all the bills. Uh okay. So it is a critical position for us to have.

I agree with that. But my my question though is when I'm looking at the current budget, I'm just looking at salaries, not people or anything else. We're at 608. The base is 530 and the ask is is 564. We must have budgeted for those positions last year. Yes, there there were some. So, basically all we're doing is filling budgeted positions this year. Okay. Right. Is that basically what we're doing? Right. Yeah, pretty close. Pretty close.

So, I know you want to move the accounts payable position to a permanent position. Um, I would like us to look at the front desk position, which is currently a contracted administrative assistant, and also look to move that into a permanent position full-time. That person acts as the ambassador to the town when somebody walks in the front door. And we don't have someone there full-time now in that role. And so that's something, you know, I think we as a board should look at because

I don't think that's up to the board. I think that's up to the town manager following the chain of command. And if the town manager feels that that is a position that needs to be permanent, then they will come to the board about it. But that's not for the board to decide what positions are permanent and not.

We're back into issues um on something like that. But I think it's fair to say that the board will keep an open mind as to the recommendations of the town staff um as to what those duties or the person should be. So I think that what you've got in here either way is enough money to cover it either way. So we should be fine. Is that correct, Wayne? Well, yeah. Right now that person would um Yeah. I mean they're they're they're through like a contracted services. So they're in that contracted services line is

No, I agree with you, Connie. when we get a permanent town manager, if they think that needs to be a full-time position, we need to advertise it. What I don't want us to be in a position is where we're short on funds if because the contracted services costs us money, too. So then we could go to a permanent position, right? But right, we're right back to an issue that we can decide as a board um when those things come up and based upon the recommendation. So again, we're

that's a we got to make sure we've got enough money to cover what we have today. every fund has got a contingency amount in it so that we to the extent that we need to make changes um per your recommendation if it's Larry or if it's um whoever to be determined. So as long as you believe we've got enough money in here to cover those two things. So I saw we've got about what $43,000 I think for the front desk. Is that right? Under contracted services. Yeah, it's 48. So 20 it's $20 an hour. So okay. Yeah.

All right. Thank you. Um so again now just uh Ricky if you'll go to that expansion tab just to illustrate uh this is where the um 2.9% cola and 3.5% merit. And it is actually printed out. It's toward the back. If you look on this very top you'll see it'll say expansion. There may be some blank columns, but if you get to the first page or two, that that's where the salaries lie. It's really most of these expansion columns are just going to be salary related. Uh where

the short version on this to me is we're going from temporary staff people to a full-time finance department um to be able to handle the things we need to handle. Is that Yeah, that's really the only major change in the um administration is is bringing in the accounts payable as a full-time uh and in the merit in the cola that that's decided on by the board. So most of your other incidental expenses are pretty flat, right? And that was our goal in that we went to GWI because we didn't have staff. Yes. And we wanted to get away from them now and get back to having a fully staffed department.

Right. and and GWI had a full-time person dedicated to accounts payable when they were were with us and she transitioned out in our temp position transitioned in around the December time. Not to highlight the issue, but when contracted services go from 437,000 down to $48,000, I think the board believes that's a good step forward in that to be able to handle this. Go ahead. Okay. Um, so again I guess uh should I ask for general consensus with where we are on the administration budget right now? I had a question. Okay. The sherm training. Okay.

With our professional training do we I mean that's a significant number for someone and gives them skill set. Let me look at the line to get trained and leave us. So, do we have anything in there where people sign? Um, and this is just a random question. I mean, we've been doing a lot of training in a lot of departments and then everybody takes our training and goes away. Is that a standard request? Have we done a sherm tw training for someone before? We haven't had a clerk in a long time. So, um, if I may.

Yeah. So my sherm training would be no different than majority of the trainings you see for our people here. Um Wayne will go to finance officer school. I have attended uh clerk institute in the past. There are various degrees uh for different fields of that equivalent that typically do not have we typically it's just put in the budget as well. Um so there's two certifications with SHERM.

There are there's the professional um yeah there are two levels. One of them I am not really qualified for within my position. So I'm not going for that one. I'm going for the other one. Okay. Because the one you have to work in an HR department and supervise so many people for so many years. Yes, I am aware. Um yeah, we I did I am not signed up for that one. I'm not signed up for anything at this moment. Okay. Um but no, I I've chosen the correct certification. Okay. For my position. So again, we'll go to consensus, but again, let's keep in mind that because it's in the budget, the town manager has the discretion to approve or not approve training type of things. So with that, Mark, Kip, I'm good on Connie. Laura.

Yep. All right, let's keep going. Wayne, thank you. All right. Uh, this is going to be tricky. Uh, Ricky, you're up. So, what maybe if you'll put it on the summary page, he's hiding

and then because he he's controlling our uh our screen here. If he'll put it on the summary page, then he can possibly work us through the detail and we can work off our printouts if we need to. Um just to to as Ricky's walking up front um again the salary is the same here. It it's current salaries for the positions that we currently have. Uh and then the merit increases we've spoke to before. So that that's again going to going to be a constant theme as we go through all the departments. Again, this is our first blush going through this and then tying it back to the to the income statement. So thank you.

Yeah. How would y'all like me to do this rehash or do you all have questions for me based off last time? I think Laura had a question for you. Okay. All right. So, under our current contract um for the website

are we getting any upgrades from them? Any improvements? What are we got what are we getting from that current contract? Every five years they're supposed to do a uplift where they go through and they make any changes that we want visually. Um, as far as the layout of the website goes, the navigation where it's located, that really doesn't change. If you look at our website, Enzo County's website, Surf City's website, the general layout of the navigation elements is the same. Okay? So that it's easier for citizens to go from one municipal website to another and still be able to navigate it. But um yeah, we do get a facelift every five years. Is this a year for that? This is a year for that.

Okay. And do we know when that's coming? They have started on it, but they have not given us a go live date yet. Okay. Because I don't know if we've let anybody know that we're changing that. Yeah. Right. Okay. Well, once we have a definite date, okay, of when they're planning on it being done, we can go out with something some kind of public announcement because people get used to navigating on it. Okay. Yep. All right. And there's no expense in addition to our normal contract for that. Our cost is staying the same. They tried to increase it on us, but we pushed back heavily and they're keeping it the same.

Okay. All right. Um, let's see. That was the only question I had. I see our phone budget almost doubled. Are we due for new phones this year? No, ma'am. The reason for that, it's actually phone and internet. Ah, and the spectrum bill was under uh public buildings, utilities last year and it should have been under this and it's getting moved there now. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. And and just to clarify and I know you've already answered this question, when I look at dues and subscriptions, that's not magazines.

No, sir. Okay. Because that, you know, when you look at that category, you're just like, well, that's a lot of magazines for us to have here. That's basically all your licenses. All licenses, not just for it. That's any piece of software that's used by multiple departments falls under my budget. So, citizen serve for planning and zoning, building, that's under here as well. And building security, it went from 33 to zero. Building and security, that was supposed to be under the fire department's um multi-year fund. That is for the secure door access controls, cameras, all that stuff. So, it is in my budget this year, but it's going to get moved to there. All right. And that's just a one and done. We're paying for that one time, and it it's not coming back. All right. Thank you for that clarification.

Yes, sir. Thank you. Okay. Do we have a consensus to at least include this in the next round of what we're doing? Mark, looks good. Thank you, Connie.

Thank you. Okay, next in our pile is planning. So, we'll give Ricky a half a second to get back to the chair and we'll let uh I think Deb is going to help us with planning and inspections, but go ahead. Uh there's no changes uh presented. There was a modest request uh for an increase that we had discussed. Um say again,

I'm sorry, one moment. I got a photo.

It's kind of like one of those now or now now or nevers. It's it's something that I was wanting to kind of discuss amongst the town manager and interim town manager uh before I pres presented it to the board. But um current it's a it would also include a reclassification. Uh current currently we have a planner one that's working at the planner 2 level and that will be uh sitting for a certification an AICP certification. And so, uh, I was going to recommend or propose a reclassification along with, um, a slight increase.

Um, I just have actually a comment. Um, Carter Metaf is going to come in May uh, to make a presentation to the board inspections and everything. He's the planning director for the county. I talked to him on Monday to come in and talk about that because in my conversations with the board, they want to work very closely with us cooperatively to figure out ways that we can work together even more. I know he's doing some of the or his people are doing some of the inspections now, but they're they're doing the building inspections, right? That's right.

Yeah. Yeah. They're covering for building inspections and then we're still doing we're still doing the zoning and flood as well as the zoning and flood reviews. they're in addition to the inspections they are also u conducting the reviews for building inspections. So, but yes, just a heads up, but I think that what you've got here and again the reclassification stuff, I think we would look to the the town manager uh to make a recommendation on those type of things. And and I'm guessing I don't know this about timing. Um Lars, you've

I got to call you Lars because I'll be talking to Larry when we do the study we're talking about. It's not just a compensation study. It's going to be about u roles and responsibilities and things like that rather than just pay. Correct. That would be the understanding. Everything. Okay. All right. Thank you. Y So Deb, you're pulling what you're talking about from a planner one planer two from the the national planning like absolutely correct. Okay. So the job roles and responsibilities you're describing are based on standard planner one, planner two duties, right? National standards. That's correct.

Right. So that's something Yes. that you can take to the town manager once somebody's passed their test, whatever, and see if you can work that through. Yes. I appreciate that. Thank you. Yeah. How are we? We Okay, Mark, I I have one question. Gas, oil, and tires. Let me answer that by saying I almost had a cardiac arrest and had to call 911 whenever I filled up my vehicle yesterday. Okay. So, which vehicle is that? We we actually have currently we have two. We we're still maintaining the um Tundra and then what year is the Tundra?

Uh I think it's 2006. Okay. Uh, but it's a very utilitarian vehicle with that 8 foot bed, right? That would certainly come in handy in the event of having to move things out of the building for a hurricane prep. Um, um, public works may find some use in it also. It's still a good vehicle for hauling. It's It's a good beater.

Okay. You know, it's like it's like I've got two cars. I've got a old one that's in a garage and then I drive mine to work. So, but uh it's still a good vehicle. And then we have the code enforcement vehicle that's used on a daily basis. And what year is that? I'm not sure. Okay. Yeah. I I apologize to you. I really don't know what the year is. Okay. So, the gas, oil, and tires is just maintenance on these two vehicles, correct? Okay. And we think that's like no increase. You're good there. You know, none of us know, right?

None of us know. And so I would say that, you know, for right now, keeping it static and then if if I have to do a bud if I need to do a budget adjustment, then I'll come in and do a budget adjustment. But I don't see I don't see upsetting the apple cart for what might be right. No, I get it. I I know we need to be prepared, but I think it's simple enough to do a budget adjustment. Well, it's just like we're looking ahead to new fire trucks. We We got a 20 year old truck. At some point, the board might want to look ahead to planning for a new truck. Yeah, I think we had that on capital improvements to replace next year. Okay. So, we had we had that discussion already. Yes, ma'am. We did. Okay. We did.

All right. Okay. I'm just trying to squeeze the life out of it. That's all. Okay. Well, and being in the energy business, the out the six months, eight months from now, the the price is about 40% down to what it is now, too. So, all good. I said I'm in the energy business. If you look at the at the forecasted strip, it's way off. It's way down from what it is now. So, we'll see. And that's next year we're talking about. So, thanks. The cost is way down from what it was forecasted to be. WTI prices are down. Yeah, it is appreciated that you're squeezing the life out of everything. Really appreciate it. Thank you, Deb. Thank you.

Hey, Deb, if you'll hang on because inspections um one caveat, I'll I'll let Deb handle the departmental aspects of it. Um, again in the salary line, uh, it does include our existing permit specialist, but we still do have the vacant code inspector at this point. Should we decide to do something different in the future with the county, we can change that, but at this point, it's it's still in there. The position is still being advertised.

We don't know what's going to happen, right? So, no problem with that at all. Sorry. Go ahead. Yep. So, um, so that's kind of a placeholder as well. Uh, the only increase, as I mentioned before, was I think $3,500 for the or $3,300. $3,500 for uh two cabinets and otherwise that remains static. Okay. With the uh remains static as far as everything below salaries. So, question Deb on this one. um your dues and subscriptions there.

We I think we increased we added I'm sorry, my apologies. We did I forgot about the training. Uh we added more for uh employee training for the permit specialist uh for clerk. So that's under Yeah, that's under the employee training. That's under employee training. Then dues and subscriptions subscriptions. Is that software or actual subscriptions? Membership dues. Membership membership dues for clerk as the deputy clerk for the permanent specialist and you're what software are you guys using and is that in Ricky's budget? It is uh currently we are using citizen serve.

Okay. There has been some discussion. Uh certainly if if say again I was just wondering we're in the weeds right now. We're in the weeds. Okay. Well, let me jump down there with you. Okay. Let me get in the weeds with you. Um so, the county currently uses Intergov. Okay. And uh should we partner with the county? Okay. then we would be able to use intergov and there would not be a fee for that and we could cancel the four uh license that we are currently paying for with citizen server.

Gotcha. So we've not taken that we've not taken that out. Okay. Uh not too of a deal. So all right. Um but if things came to pass then that would be an adjustment certainly under the building inspector building inspector salary as well as uh the software. Okay. Great. Mark consensus just for my general knowledge settlement agreement was 114 agreement settle agreement was paid that was a legal matter. I'm good. Okay. Good. Good. Good.

All right. Thank you. Thank you. Public works. Okay. Yeah. Public works. Yeah. I'm sorry. I saw the public on there. You might as well sit in the front. You might be up and down a few times. Get my steps in this morning. Morning, Mayor. Mayor Prom, ladies and gentlemen of the board. Um, I guess I kind of have the same question as as Ricky if if we need to go line by line or if there's any specific questions. I do have a uh a PowerPoint that I'd put together after sitting through our last meeting just to kind of help frame any

increases or decreases out if we needed just to discuss them. Um, one thing I would like to to note at the risk of getting my myself in trouble or or upsetting is the the M&R buildings and grounds at the last meeting uh the base request of 54,000. What what I didn't include there um is currently budgeted in this FY for it's about $50,000 for the uh the town hall deck and patio area in terms of rehabbing some of the handrails and decking and and such. Um okay,

we we can take action on it this FY. It's just some projects had kind of jumped in front of it. uh wasn't on that initial bite at next FY's budget and I don't know if you would consider that maintenance and repair or a capital outlay item due to the building. Uh but I just wanted to give a heads up to the board that I I would add that back in if it was an option. Okay. I've just got one quick question for you. Capital outlay went from 170 to 300, but 300 is the rebuilding of your building, correct? That's that's specifically focused on the public works rehab.

Okay. Um, if so, I don't know what the 170 was before, but you've only got in capital outlay that rehab. So, is that the only project you're looking at doing? I mean, what what I'm saying is if in the past it had been $100,000 in capital and we did 300,000 to the building, which is what your your spreadsheet says is 300,000 for the building, correct? Yes, sir. Right. So, that would have told me it would be 400. Now, what you're telling me is 170 goes away and you got a building there. is the gap. We're just the 170 got done and we don't need it. Yeah, I I believe that's the case. I would have to go back and look at last year's detail. I don't have it right in front of me, but the the capital outlay projects for last year,

assuming completion. So then the new the new outlay would be and it's a rehab of the building now that we've got the roof fixed. Yeah. So, the two the two projects listed under last year's capital outlay line item were the town hall erosion, which is currently being worked uh in terms of the engineering and design for a plan to mitigate that. And then also, it's listed as town hall reconfiguration, but it was specifically the decking. Got it. And and the rehab of the patio. So, what you're saying is we've done them already. We don't need to do them again, right? When No. No. So, no. The projects that we had in the budget last year that have been completed are not in the budget this year. The completed budget, new items are in the budget.

The completed projects are removed. Um, the one that Chris talked about, and stop me if I'm wrong, please, was the rehab of the decking at this point was not a priority, so it's not in the budget. And I think you said it was around 50k. Okay. It's still a potential project, but it I think at this point wasn't a next year if it becomes critical. Yeah. On Chris's recommendations. Yes. Yeah. So, I'm sorry. Out of the 300K, do we The roof is how much? The roof's not included in that total, it was uh a 100,000 was the contract award. Um I would have to go back and look at award, correct? That's already that's already an active project that's that's being worked right now.

Um let me ask a question.

Um we had talked about a possibly getting a sign at the fire station or some kind of sign at the south end. The fire station looks like a good place. There's electric for a town sign um that would be sort of like the electric one out here that could have, you know, moving text that would be able to be used for public safety if there were high winds, if there were hurricane messages, whatever coming in from the south to town. Um, I still think that's something maybe we should look at since we're under construction at the fire station, but I don't know whether that's more appropriate in the fire station budget or in public works.

Well, frankly, it wouldn't be in next year's budget. It would have to be in this year's budget because the fire station's going to be completed this year. So, it' be something we could bring up. Okay. So, I could bring that up. Yeah. If you want to add it to the agenda for May, that's for May and to see if we could make a budget adjustment then. Okay. Okay. And then and then you're giving him a heads up. Give us an idea how much it's going to cost. Well, I Yeah. And I don't have a clue what we paid for this one or how much. No, but I'm just saying if he come if it comes up in May, I think the board looks at it and says it's X or Y. We can make a decision, but I think that would have to be this fiscal year based upon the construction of that. Otherwise, we're going to have a complete station and then adding on to it, which right would be a problem. So, all right, we're good. All right.

Did you have something to say? Go ahead. I I did. Yeah. Just to clarify back on the uh the the town hall fund, um that that line item right now that's currently 54,000 um under buildings and grounds, right?

That that was where at least I had observed um replacing town hall decks as needed in last year's budget that it was estimated at 50,000. So, I don't know if there was a a difference between the town hall reconfiguration and the town hall um decks under 10500 TAC 15, but that was where I was uh soliciting to the board if if we could amend that and add the 50,000 back into that. So, so current year's budget would look like next year's budget is ultimately what I'm calling myself out on that I didn't address. That's $100,000. That's not $50,000. Last year's budget was 156.

Correct. It It would be 104,000. Adding that 50,000 back in. So you need 50 back in and the two projects would be the So for M&R buildings and grounds, that 54 is just strictly maintenance and repair of all public buildings and grounds within the town. the the added 50 back in is to carry over what we did have in this year's budget as replacing the town hall decks as needed. Okay. Again, let me let me point out something. We are in April. If it is critical that we replace these items,

then it should be on the May agenda for us to get done this year, not push it to next year. Understandable that we get done. So, if you've got a proposal that you want to make and to make a budget adjustment, not part of the budget for next year, I don't like the idea if something we as a group got a tour underneath the building. Were you guys here? We Yeah, it was bad. Um, so that's been fixed. No, that's that's currently being worked. But my point is that's right. So, but my point though is if it's critical that we get this stuff done around town hall. Yes.

I would suggest rather than going into next year's budget, we have something come to us May. That gives us May and June to get it get it approved if we need it and get it done rather than waiting a year. Does that make sense to everybody to to bring it that way? The the only reason I haven't up to this point is we have other projects in front of it. So I have fine people including myself when you bring it to us. So thank you. Okay. Uh,

yeah. Insurance. Uh, this one I'll take um unless I got any volunteers from the back. Uh as I discussed before, these are the basic insuranceances that we're carrying with the town. Um uh assumed under most of these uh about a 10% adjustment. It's it's pretty cut and dry. Cut and dry. The only comment I would have on here um is I have no no problem at all with what you put here. What we do each year in my company is we do an assessment from the insurance company as to whether that insurance is adequate for what we're trying to do. Okay.

All right. I think everybody on this board knows that things have gone up in cost. So insuring my house for $300,000 if it takes $600,000 to fix it is something. Does that make sense to you as a consensus board that we we we make sure we've got the right level of insurance? Right. Right. And in the meetings I've had, especially when I first came on board, I met with our insurance reps um and we went over the coverage at the time. Uh coverage was adequate. They are they are anticipate and the conversation I have with them was they're anticipating like an assessment which would give the rate adjustments but not until August. So the word they gave me was assume about 10%.

So that that's what I did here. Yes. Yes sir. a a question. Um, have we um do we have a placeholder for I believe like the the new fire station and the property insurance for for that? Uh, I would have to give a definitive answer. Yeah, we need to either ask I need to make sure that's in there. Yeah. And I think some I think we've got staff work working on it. I think we got staff working on it. But but on the financial side, we need to So So just we understand your logic. We've got a $7 million fire station. We ought to make sure it's insured. Yeah, that's a really good point. Thank you, Lars. Team effort. Team team effort. You know, folks are help helping me with this.

Yeah. I'm gonna I'm gonna ask the fire chief to come up for a second because the fire falls under a different insurance than than the one that our other properties do. Yeah. So, our insurance is through VFIS. We get it a cheaper rate than the league provides. Um, and they are actively working on a quote because we're so close to getting the CEO on the building and just as soon as we have it, the I think the first quote we got before Wayne came on board, it was a substantial increase from where we were at with the building we had. So, but contractors got insurance. Yeah. Right now during the construction phase, it's the contractor's insurance covering the property and then it will turn over to us and then CO is when we take it over.

Correct. But it goes in this budget, not Yeah. I don't I don't budget for VFIS. That's always come out of the Yeah, I just provide the quotes. I had help.

Sorry. No, I'm not. Is there a reason why because I know we're doing all the insuranceances here, Ricky. Are we looking at the cyber insurance with the county or are we doing that on our own? As far as I know, we're doing that on our own. Okay. Yeah, that that's the the Wells group that we use for insuranceances. That's part of one of the policies that we have through them. Um I have not investigated combination. I would have to go pull the details of the policy. Have you seen that policy, Rick? Yeah. And it should Yeah, it should be the same roughly. If you could help us out.

Yeah, that should cover like ransomware attacks, financial theft, things of of that nature. Yeah. Okay. Do Do we know how much we're covered on a financial loss? I have not seen this. Okay. Quote, so I couldn't tell you. Okay. All right. Thanks. You're welcome. All right. I think we have consensus again. Correct. All right. Yep. Okay. Go ahead.

I think you're police, aren't you? We're almost there. This one is kind of self. Okay. retired police. Yeah, we currently have one person that is still on uh the town's uh budget as a retired police officer. I believe I would need to go confirm it, but I believe that is through November of next year. So, this is just a simple simple calculation to cover that person till that point. I'm lost. Why are we Why does I know it's not a big number. Why doesn't that come out of the state pension? Why are we paying that? I don't I don't understand the the structure.

Yeah, I'm going to let the police chief help, but there is a program where they can get a retirement payout if they meet certain qualifications from the town for a period of time. So, it's mandated by state law. Good morning, everybody. It's mandated by state law to have a Yeah. When you retire, if you're under the age uh that's eligible for social security, then the the town it is. Yes, sir. That that's fine. Thank you, Chief. Is that sub that's called supplemental? Is that It is. Okay. Interesting. I'm assuming I'm next. So I'll stay.

So So the rest of story rest the story on that though, mayor and board is um um it can um an individual that um the the cost for that that plan um is a shared opportunity between uh communities. And so it um um can get very dicey if you're hire for example if you're hiring say a police chief that's three years from retirement the comm community the gaining community picks up that entire cost.

So it gets um it can get it can get really the gaming community meaning the community that would hire him for his last three years. Yeah. Hypothetically speaking, you might not know he's the person's retiring in three years or five years. Um so it gets it can get um it can get expensive to pick somebody up to retire. Yes. Yes. So if somebody retires at 57, that could be an expense to the town till they reach 65 or what year are we looking at? 62 and a half I think is worth. Okay. Till first first eligible social security. You know it wasn't built because he's 70. Yeah. No, you're not paying bill of supplement.

And and just for the record, I've got 13 years before I can retire. So, you get plenty of service. Just saying. Just saying. Just just administrative mayor, do we want to take a fiveminut break or we want to keep going? Five minute break. Is that okay, Chief? Yeah, it's fine. Thank you, guys.

in the record and we now have Chief Paige is going to be talking to us now. Good morning again. Uh any specific questions I can address right off the bat? Feel free. So you're not the retired? No, not the retired police. I'm the here right now police. I actually have a police folder. So give me a second. Okay. I have one, too.

So I do have kind of and I'll share this with you later, but I do have the average salaries and stuff and I think that'll come out in the compensation study when that happens. Um but the other thing I would like to point out um as part of this process um is two things. One is you all have we are 31% below the state crime rate.

So that is kudos to you with the staff and everything that you've got in terms of your responses. Um, in terms of um, overtime, I noticed that you are operating within your budget and your budget is consistent with this and you've only got overtime here at being 4% of your your salary, which means I'm assuming they get paid time and a half for overtime. They do. Yes, sir. So, really, you're only talking about one or two% people issue when you when you take that. So, compliments to you within within the budget and I know you made a comment at the last meeting about that your staffing looks pretty good to you. So, it looked good the last meeting. That's right. I've lost a couple since then. But,

have you really? Yeah, I have. Yeah, we're down So, right now on paper, we're down three right now and with one in the process, the hiring process elsewhere. Um, this is traditionally I've been through a few chief changes. This is normal. I see this happen. People get antsy. they get a little concerned and they, you know, move on. And then, of course, you also have money issues to deal with. So, I think it was uh had a conversation with Larry the other day about the odds that somebody would go to Swansboro from here. And actually, that's where this person is trying to go, Swansboro. So, it's a little bit of a hike, but you know, in inside the county, people look around and and they see what's available and they move.

Yeah. Well, part of it's where they live, too. And I've talked to some of the policemen there. If you're coming here and you live in Jacksonville, you've got a 45 minute commute every day each way, right? Yeah. I live on the south side of Jacksonville. It takes me in the morning about 30 minutes to get here. So, and so, you know, that it's difficult because we're an expensive place to live, right? Yeah.

So, let's go ahead question. And again, the the way this is built in right now in the compensation study is we've got cola in there, we've got the merit in there. Um, and then we're going to be looking at a study. So, uh, and obviously, uh, at the discretion of you and and the manager if you need to make things during the year. Um and again just this seems to be and I have no idea why because Ellis has said this 50 times we don't have to hire at the bottom of the paid range. Okay. If if you know within that range Alice and within the discretion you have we have the ability to hire people you know at at a different level than the beginning range.

Sure. And I think you want to address that. And then we also talked a little bit about and we'll talk about it later on in the whole compensation thing about bonuses. um and things that you've done that way. So, well, they haven't been done yet. Uh that No, no, but I'm the whole concept of bonuses, which I'm very much in favor of. So, but I think that's something the board's got to address. I think that's something that uh would be very beneficial because like I say, we're just not a big enough agency to have a bunch of places, bunch of spots within the agency that officers can move to. So, we need to give them something to reach for. Yes, ma'am. the firing range um that you would like to use over in Holly Ridge. Is that under employee training or is that under It is under employee training.

All right. Thank you very much. I'm sorry. Just one other question. We talked about I think that you've got the EOC in the budget for about $300,000. It's not in my budget. It's in That's what I meant. But that's what that is, right? It's the one we talked about the Quanet HUD type of thing, right? Yes. Okay. And so we currently have, Alice, correct me if I'm wrong, we've got a long-term agreement to use the library for our EOC. Yes. All right. So, we do have and that has worked in the past. I we have not had a storm that we used it. The last major storm that we had, we had to stay somewhere. We stayed in the Hampton Inn. Okay. And then you'll work with Chris Thomas and stuff like we talked about as well.

Of course. Yeah. We try to maintain good relationships with everybody. I want to address that that EOC real quick. um built into the five-year plan was a future upgrade to the police department. Obviously, we're very limited on space at the police department, but I will say that that EOC can stretch that out quite a bit because the main problem that we have is storage. We have a lot of equipment that just sits out and rusts and uh evidence. We need secure storage for evidence and all of that can be incorporated into that EOC. So, it's a multi-purpose building. Of course, it'll be used for storms, but it's multi-purpose building. The only caveat I would add on that is, and I know that you're aware of this, is the county is looking at doing something in that exact same spot,

right? Okay. I happen to be on the Anasa board that happens to be on Wasa property, and they, everybody in that board knows that we get first dibs. Uh but my point though is after talking to the commission, county commissioners and stuff, trying to figure out ways to do things together might be a way for us to do something together because they were looking at putting in I think the chief knows that they were looking at putting in a whole bunch of stuff there. I don't know if that was the previous manager's role or not, but without exception on their board, they want to work with us in the areas you're talking about to figure out ways we can work together, cut expenses, and and be more efficient. So yeah, um it's something we ought to think about

and I look forward to those meetings and conversations for sure. Um a question on um firearms and ammo. We had six grand in there. Are we looking at purchasing new firearms again? We just purchased new firearms I thought last year. Where are you seeing that at? Am I not seeing $6,000, Wayne, for that? What's the number? The line item number? I don't know. It's in the backup pages. Uh yeah, base request, right?

That that was a hold over from 2025 2026 budget. That wasn't those are not in my notes. Okay. Yeah. I don't I'm not sure why that's still in there. And if you look at that training that employee training budget um and this is all obviously this all has to be hashed out and and kind of cleaned up. It says that my expansion request is 135 uh and for a total department request of 271. That's incorrect. So I put in for 3500 to cover the range fees. Okay. Yeah. you mentioned

and I had also when I when I went through that department pay plan there was 55,000 that was put in there for the bonuses that 55,000 has been removed in lie of doing a pay study and so that number should actually be I get my high school math teacher in my head that number should actually be 136 the overall department request for 10 510 is 136 and also remember and we're going to talk about this later with respect to the merit part of that since merit is based upon performance and everything else that's also a way to get bonuses out. Right. Correct.

Okay. So there is if we if we adopt something that talks about merit increases it seems to me and we'll talk about as a board you could subsume things like that to to give you somebody has done something that deserves merit or whatever. Um that's also a way to do it. Sure. I I like basing it on classes or or certifications more accurately because you've got to show value for the for the town, right? Taxpayers are putting money in. We got to show what they're getting out. So, if you're a drone pilot, you fly that drone force every day. I I think you should be rewarded for that. Good point. I have a question. I'm just We're going to go around then. You can go to your

I'm good with the Thank you so much for the clarifications. Yes, ma'am. Certainly. Okay, Laura. Um, vehicles. Are we looking at new vehicles this year?

Yes, ma'am. Under Cap Capital outlay, uh, last year we were at $145,400 for new vehicles. This year, I'm at 130. So, if I could just take a moment to talk about some cost savings there because I know that's important. We had traditionally used an upfitter uh in Morehead City. Did a great job. Built a nice truck. Fact is they were a little more expensive. Um I've been dealing largely with the last vehicle that we bought. I've been dealing with a state contract upfitter out of Clinton. Okay. And their prices are more reasonable. So that's why you're seeing that decrease there. So this is for two new vehicles.

Two new vehicles. Yes, ma'am. Yeah. Two new vehicles is a base request every year for us. and and that's really based on the amount of vehicles that we have. So we have 16 vehicles that are in the rotation all the time ready to be to serve their time and be deadlined and move on. By the time we get to about eight years, they're ready to go. I mean, they're beat pretty hard. Okay. So the the actual So your normal life on these vehicles is about eight years. Well, just sheer numbers. That's that's amazing to me. on the speech community. I'm Well, I do I do everything I can to keep them moving. I mean, if I can keep them running and on the road, I will. As evidenced by some of the vehicles that we have, if I can keep them moving, I will.

So, just real quick, you don't get paid overtime, right? So, when you're doing the mechanic work yourself on these vehicles, you're not charging us. Is that correct? That's right. All right. Correct. But we're looking at 70,000 in gas and repairs and tires. Yes, ma'am. We were at 64 last year and so I came up $6,000 because of the Middle East tensions and so on so forth. I right now I'm at 75% expended uh at $64,000 for gas, oil, and tires. So I went up. I hope this time next year I can say that I'm at 60% and the price of gas has come down, but I I put a little bit of a buffer in there.

Okay. So when we're looking because I know I signed some of the AP checks and we're doing a lot of repairs on some of the vehicles. So I know you're putting in for two a year, right? But do we have any vehicles that we have excessively repaired in this last year as well? Uh we do, but they're scheduled for to be disposed of this year. Okay. So yeah, we we move if we have a vehicle that gets a lot of repairs. We move it to the the ready the spare line and you know get prepared to get rid of that vehicle. And we're selling those vehicles off when we sell auction, right? Yeah. They have to go to auction based on town ordinance. Correct. Okay.

And and again Not for this year, but Holly Ridge, I believe, leases all their vehicles. I'm not sure that's cost effective. I think it depends on the interest rate and everything else. Yeah, wouldn't be a bad idea to just take a look at that if we wanted to flatten things out. Yeah, we've looked at it um preliminarily. I just spoke to someone who deals directly with them and their in their fleet and they're trying to move away from it. I don't know the reasons and I I actually have a chief's meeting coming up that I'll talk to Holly Ridge chief about that and find out why they're moving away from it. And I think it probably has to do with well money and modifications, right? So they don't own any of those vehicles, right? And so the way they get them from whatever enterprise fleet or whatever, that's the way they have to stay. They can't do anything to them.

Well, and Connie had talked about too, when you look at rental cars, for example, and when they sell those, they don't want to have too many miles on them, but they get no value. So there's a crossover between correct that value. So yeah. Uh, if I could, this is none of this correlates to any I'm sorry, ma'am. You have more questions. Well, I just want to make the point we're putting a lot of miles on the vehicles and we do offer our officers get to take their vehicles home. Correct.

Have we ever done a study or maybe to be able to tell the board how many miles are getting put on the vehicles driving the beach, but also in going back and forth in the commute, too? Well, so it's I I can just tell you because I know I've done it long enough. It's about 30 to$50,000 or 50,000 miles per year. And it depends on not only where they live, but the type of enforcement that that officer does. We have officers officers are people, right? We have officers that choose to get out and walk, okay,

versus driving around. And we have officers that drive a lot. So, you know, if you can't micromanage them too much, you want them to do law enforcement the way that they know and are comfortable how to do it with how to do it. So, that that's where the differences, but on average about 30 to 50,000 miles per year. Okay. And our take-home range is competitive. So, Okay. Yeah. Great. Thank you. Certainly we good consensus wise. Thanks, Chief. You're welcome. All right, I think we are now back to public works.

Good morning.

Let me get my my packets in order. One moment, please. Can we scroll up on that? Sorry. Uh referencing back again if if there's any direct questions or if if I need to go line by line, I can address any concerns or or issues. What what I would like to again uh call myself out on is a few line items that I would like to to adjust or increase if the option is made available. Uh I'll I'll list those three off and then defer back to the board. Gas, oil, and tires. At the last meeting, 22,000 was the current year budget, and I had not amended that for any market shifts or cost increases as the other departments have. Um, I would like to add about 8,000 to that uh to increase it if that opportunity still exists. Uh, specifically, uh, in the in the oil and tires realm, uh, tractor tires are expensive. Uh, mower tires are expensive, things of that nature. and uh having the ability or the flexibility to swap those out more frequently given the amount of uh rightaway cutting and mowing that we do in this town is something that I would like to have the ability to do. Um for department supplies, last year's budget was $7,000. I'd like to request a $3,000 increase to that to 10,000. um just given the amount of projects that we complete in-house vice contracting out, we're using a lot of tools and equipment or needing equipment that we didn't previously have or if we did have it, it was obsolete and no longer works. Um so adding that in and I have a a PowerPoint presentation to reflect that off of what we've currently consumed in this year's budget if you

yall would like to see that. And then uh uniforms 1054536 uh currently budgeted at 2500 for this year. I'd like to add $1,000 to that. And the justification behind that is we were we were staffed of three total personnel when that budget was approved and we have four. So I'd like the ability to uniform four staff, not three. Outside of that pending, any questions? Do you have any areas you can cut? I'm sorry. Do you have any areas where you can cut you can offset offsetting those increases or adjustments?

Uh not particularly no. We can figure out a way to get it done if those increases aren't allotted. Um but I figured no time like the present to ask for him if we're if we're planning for the future. He is showing

right 167 to 15. Yeah, Ricky, could you pull that PowerPoint up and go to the public works, please? Hopefully hopefully this will help to keep myself on track. Otherwise, okay, really quick, just so I have clarification in my minutes, you said you wanted to add an increase to uniforms as well as in the amount of 1,000. And what were the other two?

Uh 1054531 gas, oil, and tires. I'd like to add $8,000 to that. And 1054533 departmental supplies, I'd like to add 3,000 onto that. Can we go to the budget? He would like to add 12,000. Keep going. Oh, that's too far. Go to go to that slide buff for public works, please.

The the budget. Yeah, this this was just to again give a visual of of currently where we're at with that uh 10545 fund. So, you can observe the gas, oil, and tires, departmental supplies, and uniforms being uh in in the top or the last one-third of the budget remaining with about 80 or so days left in the fiscal year. So, that just gives you a visual of what we've consumed to this point with what time we have left. Um, Yeah, that's listed here as well. I can speak to that if if if I need to.

Uh again, I was going to defer to the board. I've been in contact with a few uh service providers um looking at different options, whether it's ULV, which is a fogging system that's dispersed from the back of a truck. um given the mileage of the town, one one treatment of town area is about $860 roughly based off their mileage rate. Um if we want to go a larvaide treatment which is not fogging, uh the benefit to that is not killing other flying insects like our pollinators. Right. But what I'm looking at is to date we spent $119 out of a $2,000 budget. Correct. I think that was Jazz Festival, right? Or I believe.

Oh, to do that one. Thank you. Yeah, the mo most of those are are going to be related to the equipment, the chemicals that that are used to support that. Um, but my my recommendation would have been uh pivoting away from that and and contracting those services just to um to to be frank, it's it's a little more costly, but the the liability is the concern on my behalf in terms of our technicians out there spraying and if the chemicals not mixed properly or things of that nature, we're just protecting ourselves. So

to her point, last year's numbers, this year numbers on capital outlay, what is the difference in the two? Not the money. What did you do last year? What are you planning on doing this year? I thought that's what you were asking. If we're if there's a $12,000 difference, it really depends on what you're doing. His capital,000 so far this year. Was there a reason to drop out from 1675 to 15? Ricky, can you go to the the slide with Yeah, the capital outlay this year is the request to replace the two vehicles. That's what the 155 is.

No, the capital outlay forecast for the budget we're approving. I'm sorry. The current year he wants to replace two vehicles next year. That's what his 155 number is. Yeah. Last year's capital outlay was budgeted for a JCB backho which was purchased shortly after I was brought on staff. It was also quoted for a John Deere boom mower attachment and a field and brush mower which my recommendation is the town does not need given our current capabilities. Um so so that that was the previous year's budget. Uh the 155 is explicitly for those two vehicles that we're looking at replacing for the public works department.

Okay. So let me ask a question. Uh the John Deere boom attachment was about 15,000 and the field and brush mower was written in as about $5,600 in last year's budget. Okay.

Yes. Budget is for two vehicles, correct? And what vehicles will be we replacing? Uh the two vehicles would be the F250 flatbed truck that one of our technicians currently uses as their daily uh source of movement throughout the town area. And then it's the large dump bed uh Chevrolet 4500. Um both of those I've got mileage data and and cost to date if you need those as well. Okay. And there's no way to move one of those into into a future year. I I would defer to the board on that. G given our fleet of vehicles to

maintain if it's going to fall apart driving down the road. That's not something. But we're looking at budget year to budget year to the extent that that we don't load everything up in the front in one year. Okay. It's like when when the when the chief talked about replacing cars. In theory, we could replace cars 100% of them every year or we could say we're going to step this stuff in. And since I don't know and don't have the expertise to know whether those vehicles can last another year or not. Yes, sir.

Um my question just is as we're moving things, we want to make sure that we're that that we're prudent in terms of what we buy and when we buy it. But if you inherited junk and they need to both go this year, you need to let us know. Well, maybe I was asleep at the wheel, but I thought that he had already talked about what he proposing the last time that when we had our meeting here uh and everybody came up front and and he he he spoke then and explained what he was doing about all this. So, I I don't see him doing anything different uh as far as as as automobiles and vehicles and whatnot. Yeah,

he's just changed a few items that he's got on here, but all the things that we're asking about, he had already put in the budget to start with. The issue the issue isn't about the issue isn't about what needs to be replaced. The issue is about how what does our budget look like, what are we able to do, and what are our priorities. So, if it's something where um I'll make this up, that the the police chief cannot have four vehicles on the road, that's a problem, right? If what you're saying to us is I can get by another year and instead of having two things bought in the same year, I can buy one now and one then, that's a benefit to the to the taxpayers. Yes, sir.

In terms of not having to outlay the money now, that's all. It's it's really since we've never seen the revenue versus the expense. It's easy to say this is what we want from an expense side without understanding what that does to the tax rate. That's all I'm talking about. So if if you were to move a purchase I'm making this up, a million dollars one year. Okay, that's four cents in property taxes.

I understand that. Um I'm just looking at at this from a life cycle management perspective. That's fine. the the five vehicles we have, the youngest is a 2020 and all of them have 63,000 miles or more on them. The two I'm looking to replace have over 100,000 miles on them. Um, and one of them is 21 years old and the other one is about 10 14 years old. So the the amount of time we we drive on the beach, saltwater exposure and things like that, we're this is all about just we talked about ways to help in terms of smoothing out expenses and stuff like that. To the extent you can't do it, you can't do it. To the extent you can do it, we're looking for ways, you know, to do those things. That's my only point.

So bottom line is, do you think those two vehicles will make it another year or not? The the the dump bed, absolutely not. Okay. the the F250 flatbed. We we can try. But that's I just I just want to preface that with the next nor easter hurricane we have where I have a truck breakdown on the beach. Yep. Now Now you're talking about spending more money to get vehicles and equipment off of a beach as a recovery process. So your recommendation to the board is that you need both of these vehicles. I need vehicles I can I can trust when I need them the most. Okay. And right now I can't do that with these two trucks. Um, what will you explain what M&R equipment is, please?

Yes, maintenance or repair equipment. So, anything anything that we have to service or repair as it relates to items that fall under the equipment category. So, it could be a a handheld tool, a circular saw from DeWalt. Um, it could be a a string trimmer or or other other items that don't necessarily fall into the classification of a of a vehicle. that that would be our equipment and where we conduct maintenance on. What are you seeking to add to that? That I see that went up quite a bit for for the M&R of equipment for 15,000.

Uh that is and let me pull out my budget spreadsheet so you guys aren't waiting on me to go through slides. Um so, so time now we're we're currently at about 51%. um total cost for the current budget year. My my projections for how much we're using this equipment and how many projects the town is lining up, that cost is only going to increase. And some of these items on the equipment side are also consumables like a saw blade, right? That that's part of our M&R equipment because that would bring that saw back up to operation. But if I go out and use that for a week, that saw blade is consumed and I have to buy another one that there there's replacement costs that are higher for those items because of of their higher rate of consumption.

$52,000 worth of needed repairs. We we do a lot of maintenance and repair of of public buildings and spaces and areas of this town. I have to keep the equipment running. All right. Thank you very much.

Just real quick now I'm confused. I'm looking at Wayne's financial report from March 17th and under M&R equipment a budget of 37 which you've got here. All right. We have only spent 51% of it. We've spent $16,000 and we are threequarters of the way through the year. You just said the opposite that we've overspent. We're underspending according to the financial

there is a lot we get. There was a lot of projects that we were contracting out to vendors before I got here that we're no longer contracting out. We're doing that work with town staff. So, so that consumable point or that price is going to change. I I came on the first year of this fiscal year's budget. So, I wasn't part of last year's budget meetings. What should have been lined up not lined up. During my turnover process, there were a lot of repairs done by contractors in certain spaces and areas. and we have since transitioned more into an internal function in terms of repairing our own areas. I'm just saying it's something maybe for the next meeting.

I'm just saying I believe what you said to us is inconsistent with what the financial report says in terms of the expenditures. If you're correct and you think you're going to spend that money, then we ought to consider it. I'm just looking at the numbers and the numbers tell me on M&R equipment we have spent 51% of the $37,000 budget and we are now nine months into the year. That doesn't make any sense, right? It does when I had a fourth staff member that came on in October. So, so I only had three staff members, including myself as a working supervisor, hired a fourth. So, so with an increase in staff, my equipment is increased in use as well. On top of again, multiple projects that we're doing on the 46 beach accesses that we have in other areas.

Just looking at the numbers and and what you said was that you've already expended the budget. What I'm saying to you is you haven't. If there's a reasonable explanation for it, I'm all for it. I'm just all I'm looking at is the numbers. I maybe I misspoke. I never said I expended the budget. I I said my projections what it would increase. I have no problem with what what you're suggesting. All I did was look at the numbers and the numbers didn't tie back. That's a very simple We also need to take into account there's there's a few areas from a public perspective that are being added to our list of areas to maintain that weren't on last year's budget as well. That's a good explanation. Thank you. All right. So, one more question. And so the areas that were contracted out before that you guys are doing now

to Conniey's point, where were those expenses? Because now we should see a reduction there from those contracted services and were they in your departmental budget last year or were they in another budget? They're they're in another budget. So if we're doing maintenance or repair of buildings and grounds, separate budget that would be tracked separately. This is specific M&R equipment for public works equipment, nothing more. We could see a reduction in that line item from the contracted services from last year because we're now doing it internally. Otherwise, just stick with the contracted services, right? Okay, everybody. We good? Um, are we good with his increases there? I think we have to see what the total number looks like.

Yeah, I would like to I would like you to look back through it and see if there's any place you could shave off bring it down some. Yeah, I mean, look, as as a general thought for us as a board, what I think our consensus is until we see what the revenue numbers look like over the expenses, it's hard to say that, you know, it may be that we want to put more money into something else. It may mean we want to put less money, but unless we put the two pieces together, I wouldn't be ready to make a, you know, a recommendation that we've got to spend or not spend. I I think I think that for this meeting that we're going beyond where we need to be going.

And I think that the anybody that's never worked with this kind of equipment and that kind of job has no idea what you run into on a day-to-day basis. Uh having been a developer and and and doing a lot of a lot of things using the heavy equipment and all those things. You've got expenses that you can't even calculate exactly where they ought to be, but they're expenses that are part of the work process. So, I think that I think that we need to if we want to have these discussions and I think we need to have it on the agenda for the for the May meeting. Okay, that's fine. And now we're going to introduce the star of the show. I think that's it. Thanks, Mr. Carter. So, not approve this budget.

I think the consensus is that we would approve the original budget and keep an open mind on the adjustments. Is that fair? Well, yeah, but I think obviously if we said with gas and oil there was no that that's going to have to I 100% with you, but I think we we take what was presented to us and say consensus is fine and then we'll look for adjustments and and Lexi is keeping um trap track of what those adjust Well, you are, aren't you? Yeah, she's already adding it to the spreadsheet, so we're good. So, Doug Yes, sir. probably many wish they didn't. Also known as the penny man.

I've heard him call a lot of things. I guess Mr. Carter will work. That's right. Understand what what Doug tends to do is he puts things which I love in the in the context of pennies, meaning one cent of property tax is how he describes things. So the floor is yours, my friend. And Mr. Carter, if you wouldn't mind. Hate to make you stand. There's a microphone right there. We don't have a microphone on the table. We can move it over. No, you're fine. We'll just move it over.

It's It's got a short leash to it, right? But let's slide this over. Okay, cool. I I don't mind. You you think so? I'll sit close. Okay, cool. I should be standing after being in the car for a long time. Uh Mr. Mayor, members of the board, um various managers. Can you hear me? Yeah. Good.

Various managers at various statuses. Currently, um I have with me a new member of our firm, Dylan Gangapadier, who came to work for us about a year ago. Um he's a a young man from Maryland, but he got his graduate degree from Duke. So, he's got a North Carolina background as well, and he's been made a great contribution to our firm. Um uh we we're here today to discuss several things. set context, uh define a plan, um hear your priorities and needs and so forth. But before I start that, I want to give context. I I'm a numbers person, so I want to give context. And these are all rounded numbers, so don't hold me to pennies or dollars. You know, I'm a big numbers guy. You have a general Nice to see you in person. Um, you have a general fund budget of $10 million. Okay. You have another 7.1 million or 7.3 million that you spend on the beach. That's your shoreline protection. I prefer beach fund because it's fewer words and on your capital improvement program. So, you currently spend 73% of your general fund budget is spent on really your economy. A big chunk of it is the beach, which is your economy and your reason for existing. Beach cities and towns are very different than non-be ones because of what you sell, what your economy is, your environmental issues and concerns and costs. And you're very differently managed from a perspective of how you raise capital, how you raise revenues.

Um, many beach towns have municipal service districts at all levels. We've discussed municipal service districts with this town board seven or eight years ago. Mr. Mayor, in that

that's about right. Seven or eight years ago when we were talking about another beach process. Um, but what I see happening for you guys as part of the benchmarking I want to do for you, what I see happening to you potentially is your cost, your non-general fund cost being bigger than your general fund cost. They're right now 73% of your general fund cost. They could go over that considerably depending upon what you do to your beaches, what you do in your capital improvement program, how you finance and raise money for those various things. You have a CIP in front of you of $13.5 million over five years. Now, I don't know what part of that you'll want to do. I'm going to talk about it a little bit later. How much time, Mr. Mayor, do you want me to take

Okay. Um, by the way, he's on a fixed price contract. We're good with the outcome. This is not all hourly. Um Um, could you We've got new people here. Yes, sir. Would you just take two minutes to explain the work that you've done for us before with the Saabs, the refinancing, because you literally saved the town millions of dollars when we got rid of and now the financial position we're in is because of your work with Alice and the and the board of getting stuff done and where we are today. If you would.

Okay. Perfect. Let me give you a little more background than that. Um, I'm a North Carolina raised guy. I worked for the treasur of North Carolina for many years. I became the finance director of the city of Charlotte and then I moved to the to the private side and started doing investment banking and then 23 years ago I formed my own financial advisory firm. So, I've been operating out of that firm for 23 years. Uh I'm very proud of our firm because our focus is as much financial planning and financial management as it is doing a deal like getting you a fire station. The new fire station pardon

yes Anasa is also our client and very complicated and a lot of stuff that they're doing. Um I got started with North Topsel Beach because the interim management manager of Oak Island I think he was interum. No, he was probably full manager of Oak Island. Was from North Topppsel and he decided he was going to retire. I believe he lived on a sailboat in Oak Island and he sailed his sailboat back up here and I think became the interim or full-time manager here. He called us and said, "You work for us in Oak Island. Come to North Topsel." At that time, you had a very bright mayor who was going to get a beach project done, a nourishment project done, and we assisted the town in a financial planning engagement to figure out how you could raise that capital. Um, the only way you could raise it was a USDA loan, 30-year loan. local government commission let us enter it but basically said you can't ever get another piece of debt until you've paid that off

which the board did not know I'm not sure I listen I let me just say this I told the board I don't know what was remembered yeah the current board yeah we didn't know

yeah yeah so long and the short of it is um we did a couple of other things with the town specific engagements helped buy some fire trucks and things things of that nature. More deal oriented than financial planning oriented. And then um I apologize David last name slips me was a yes a wonderful man called us and said we found your name in the records. You've apparently done work for us in years past. We're in the middle of this um big beach project with

Army Corp. Army Corp project with Sunset. Can you come in and help us? So we enter entered into another financial planning engagement. Out of all of that, it became fully understood by the board that it didn't matter how much we talked about any of that until we got that USDA loan on us. We weren't ever going to get any more borrowed money. And so we did a refinancing of the USDA loan. It saved a lot of money thankfully, which is I I'm going to say to those of you who have been in here a long or short term, the town is in such better position than it was when I came here the first time. It's immensely better through management and policy setting and working together on various things. Now, we're going to talk a little bit before I leave or you kick me out about challenges that you face, but we all know those, don't we? and I I just want to put some numbers around them for you. So, that's what I've done for the town over time. And then Alice comes and we start other projects and other sorts of things. And this specific contract that I have with you now is financial planning related. There will likely be some financings in the future that I'm going to talk to you about that we would hope to assist you on, but those are separate engagements. What we're doing for you now is totally planning. It was oriented towards planning for the big project. Y'all have got a name for it, but I forget it.

Yeah. It's the fiveyear nourishment plan. Yes. And it's for phases one, two, and three. Right. The one we're looking at now is it phases or tranches? I forget the word we one two three. Um as part of that was to look at

right as to ways to get to funding that to raise our share of that and to and more fully look at the capital improvement needs, how they might well be financed either through a bank loan or for PGO financing because you built your own reserves, things of that nature. And then to develop for you a model, financial planning model that would allow you to go in and play one, two, three and say for this revenue, what if it grew this? For that expense, what if it grew that or diminished that? How does all that go together? Dylan's already started on that. We did one several years ago that we're going to make better. But what I'm really here for, so that's sort of this contract was planning oriented to capital, oriented to the model with respect to the general fund. What I see us needing to spend a great deal of time on is the beach and the capital improvement fund planning because folks, if we do what we're planning, those two costs will be way more than 73% of the general fund budget and we'll have means to get there that are very diverse and interesting, I suppose, and different. Um, the big project is 45ish.

I hear there's a grow groin project that's 30-ish. Don't know which or both of those are needed and when and in what timing. I just know they sit out there big numbers. Now, to give the board context, everything we do in this state that we borrow for must be approved by the North Carolina Local Government Commission. Okay? the only beach loan. We we have the great privilege of of being advisor to a number of beach communities. And when the you when the local government commission approved that USDA loan right before they told us they were going to we were going to have to sign a separate agreement that said we wouldn't borrow anything else till that was paid off. That was not in the original documents, by the way. um um was the first time I'd ever seen anybody borrow for beach nourishment beyond six years. So that's the de that's what we have to deal with with big projects is the local government commission will not allow you to be paying debt service on sand that's washed out into the ocean or moved to a lower part of the beach. Now do I think that's right, wrong, or indifferent? I've moved away from discussing that for a long time. It just is what it is. And from a financing perspective, when you think about it, if you're buying sand, you want to kind of pay for the sand before it all washes away or or partially, not all, partially washes away.

So, keep absolutely absolutely and be just Doug, before you move on, just one clarification in this. When we were working on the beach plan, Larry was chairman of the committee. What we were looking at and we were representing to people based upon what Chris had talked about is that we probably had the funding available to do beach plan with outside resources. The problem with that is except for our match. Well, right. Yeah. But the point being is we really couldn't say that because we didn't know what the other piece the fund 10 stuff was as well. So your modeling is going to say if I'm spending a dollar today in fund 10, right?

And I have I increase that by 5% every year during that fiveyear plan, I now have an expense that's much higher in that year. And that'll be part of your modeling, too, because that's where cash is only going to be what we've got. That's correct. Okay. And so that's what you've talked to us about is you're going to give us a view of if I move something here, it affects something here if I do that. And so, you know, just to clarify because that's a discussion we've had a number of times and that's why your modeling is so important to us.

That's why I'm also going to say to you, here's a cost that you're looking at and here's uh the shortfall in your current resources and how you're going to get there. Uh g give you a specific example. I I'll just give you one, okay, real quick. 45 or so was the big the first the the three tanches three areas. 11ish or so was our match as I'm remembering. I've got it written down. Pardon? Yes. 11ish was our match. The rest was coming and hopefully is coming from a straight state grant.

Um we have $3.5 million coming to us really quickly because we're going to pay off our last debt.

$3.5 million is coming to us. Okay. on a five or sixyear funding, right? $3.5 million will raise us 18ish to 20-ish depending on whether it's five or six years. What we can we convince the LGC our sand is going to primarily stay here for. So we recovered, but that's basically our capacity in that fund. We have a little more money that's going into reserves. I would assert maybe not enough but more money available to go into some reserves. The major charge for us when we get all phases of the beach

nourished and hopefully at an engineered basis so that we have maximum FEMA money when we have storms. Um, we're going to have to figure out what it costs to renourish that beach. And where is that money coming from?

Yes. Well, what what happens? We're doing a very nice beach town in Dare County right now whose name I won't call. We do all the beaches in Dare County, lovely beaches like yours, and they renourish about every six years. They've developed a plan which I hope to help y'all develop to say part is going to be payo because we put money aside so that we're not borrowing everything and the remainder will be borrowed. Okay? Now folks, I don't need to tell you that the cost of reourishment's going up. I mean y'all pretty well know that. And so the focus is if we don't create money to pay debt service for the one two three that we're doing knowing that in six or seven years we're going to have to spend more money again to retain its engineered capacities. If we don't start saving money for part of the payo now together with the debt service we're paying now then we're going to end up five or six years from now and have to borrow all of it again. Now, I'm not against borrowing at all because interest on a five-year borrowing is not huge because it's such a short duration, but I do think you got to mix funding. I don't think you can borrow everything. And so, I think I our challenge is going to be how do we get those two big old projects accommodated, right? If I start getting in trouble, will two of the management people just throw something at me like a sign or something? right now without some significant third party help we don't have nearly enough money like nearly and just because this has come up in a

number of meetings I think what the board is also going to be looking for is that you're going to tell us what our capacity is in spending and Larry working with them has said okay if we did still did an engineered beach in one two three, but maybe we put less sand on it and we had to fund it ourselves. What you're going to tell us is what our capacity is, right? Yes, sir. So, if we decide to do less sand but still get the beach project done because we don't get that, you're going to be able to give us that as well. Yes, sir. I am. Does that make sense to everybody? We got to know what we've got.

I'll tell you what you got now, but I'll save that for a surprise. Council member here has already got it figured out. I see it rolling in her eyes. But but the point is I I'm here to work on general fund. I think your general fund challenge isn't anywhere near your beach in in capital projects challenge. I just don't. That's where the money is. Um and so that's what I'm hoping we can do. We need to set policies. Folks, right now you have a considerable fund balance in your general fund.

You No, no, not in the general fund. That's total. Yeah. So, so here's here's the point. Um, AAA rated big cities in the interior have 30% of their budget fund balance. They don't have hurricanes and they don't have reenourishment. Now, every now and then something will blow through Asheville, who is our client as well. Go spend money in Asheville, please, and help them. Um, but the long and the short of it is you have those challenges. We have to fund those. We have to find funding sources. I personally worry about FEMA sources. I worry about the federal budget in general. Um, I read the other day that we're at 40 trillion. Uh, it's the highest compared to the GDP of our country. It's it's even higher than World War II when we were saving the world. And so that's going to have impacts on budgets and cuts and adjustments and so forth. And so what I want us to do, what I will have done a good job for you guys when I can sit here in another meeting and say, "Brother Alderman, if we spend 20 million out of our pockets on this beach, how much is it going to cost us annually?" I will have done a good job. Right?

And then we can figure out where we going to get some of that if it's not all going to come out of our money. Now, we al also sit there knowing that our penny generates 240,000. Thank God for a new assessment. One penny, $240,000. If we don't get a straight state grant on our 45 million, guess what the debt service is? first year 10ish. Make a make a division on that. Divide by 240

or whatever else. So, we we got to lay out the numbers, lay out the need, lay out the funding sources, and then figure out where we're headed. And I one final time, I just see the beach and the CIP side is really where the big dollars are. Now, I want us to save money on the general fund side, but unfortunately, it's not going to make up the difference. So, we're just going we're going to have to find sources on the capital projects. I'm a little bit surprised. We just built a firehouse. We're already financing that. We're financing a fire truck. Mhm.

As far as I know, Alice, the only major capital thing over the next five years would be another fire truck in terms of over a million bucks. Does that sound right? That fiveyear plan that that Doug has right there encompasses the ladder truck. It encompasses all the initiatives that you priorities. There's money in there for the bike. Yeah. lanes in there. Discussed that on the last meeting.

That's a large one. The police department expansion. It also encompasses what year's body cam equipments needs replacement, which is $56,000 for the police department. So, anything equipment replacement for public works or fire those are all have been um plotted for the next five years. But putting aside putting aside the bike path because how much that's changed if that was put aside is there anything in the I just don't remember anything in the fiveyear that looks like it's a million dollars or more police department expansion 5 and a half million. Yeah,

that's to build a police department to expand it.

Okay, that that's the biggie. This sheet is really good. It was a good job here laying it out by year and all of that. But guys, let me let me tell you let me tell you the power of how you use your money and what you can do. Remember I told you you can't borrow but for sand but for five or six years. Let's just say five. Five is the prevalent number. We can get you a back path and finance it for 15 or 20 years. So all of a sudden your annual cost is not a lot of money and get your back path. We can do an expansion to the debt to the police department 5.5 million to finance that for 20 years. Not that big a debt surface, right? So I think on your capital side, that's why we've got to look at all of this together. We got to look at ways to borrow the most efficiently and over a time period that least heavily impacts the operating budget. And that's what we're all going to learn the rules about

and prioritiz and prioritization within that and prioritization. Correct. As an example, a $3 million bike path borrowed for uh 15 years, 250 a year ballpark. 25300. It's a whole lot different than trying to find three million bucks. Now, now if you can get you a grant source, the real thing here is get the grant if you can get it and then we'll finance the remainder. But no grant here. Again, we got to look for the things we can borrow for the longest because a bike path is kind of a one and done once you maintain it. So,

but that bike path was also with tagging along. Originally, that was supposed to be that DOT was going to resurface the road and we were going to be adding a few feet on the side for a bike path and we were talking less than $3 million and now they've come back and said they're not going to resurface this thing. And to Mark's point, now they're talking $10 million. So, I think even though we have it as a placeholder, I have not heard the consensus of the board that we would give up the beach project to put a bike path in. Yeah. But I I could be wrong in that. I just want to make sure that everybody realized it wasn't $4 million to resurface the entire road with a bike lane. It was a tag along project.

And that's why we've got when you hear three, five, or 10 just blows up, right? I mean, it does. It's like you're on a beach. It's the sand hitting you in the face. If we borrow for it, it's a way less annual number. So, here again, we've got we've got to look at things we buy in cash and things we borrow for. Um, we just have have to have to look at those vigorously. Now, another thing that sits out there for us is we have $15 million due us from FEMA. Now, be crossing yourself or whatever other method you use to hope we get that. They're not doing anything now because they're shut down. They'll open soon. I trust it'll take them forever to catch back up. I'm told the process till we get that money could be weeks and weeks. Even though it's been teed up, well, the work that's been done by staff and others, it's teed up. But here again, you get to check. Is the money in the state yet or has it come from the fed to the state yet? Do we know, Alice?

The 15. Yeah.

What you really have to watch on FEMA is the money on FEMA grants comes from the state of North Carolina. FEMA gives the money to the state. The state holds it in an account until all everything's done. So when I work on FEMA stuff with our beach clients, when it hits North Carolina, I'm thrilled because then I just got to get it out of their bank account. Getting it from Washington to Raleigh is one step. Getting it out of Raleigh is a somewhat easier step, I might say. Although don't repeat me on that. I hope it is easier. So we've got 15 We've got 15 million there. Okay. So, we're going to need to decide how do we use that? How do we use that? Do do we use it as a way to start some reserves for reourment on four and five? Do we use a big chunk of it towards the project? How are we going to use that $15 million? So, I think that's something we'll have to look at as part of this planning process because that money has been advanced out of the general fund and the beach fund. The beach fund balances are much lower than they used to be because we've advanced so much money. Now, what if y'all hadn't had that money? That's why I'm saying a good job has been done by folks to allow that money to be in the bank. Um so so what what I had hoped that we would do today is is let me just set a context that we're thinking general but the big money is going to be in the other two uh talk about process timing. We have not put the current budget in a model and showed you with gross various growth initiatives what it would be five years from now because we don't even have a budget. you know, y'all are still doing that. So, when the budget's done, we'll

get all that started. I really see this, Mr. Mayor and members of the board, we've got a planning process that we're going to think about on strategic. There's a joke about strategery. So, when we get into strategery, uh maybe this is all part of that. It's going to be a multimonth process. Um, we're going to have to have a number of meetings that we'll address starting with today uh priorities, assumptions on costs or how we get to those. Um, Mr. Alderman, I know when we talked in in our recent uh get together that there is some data out there on cost to renourish four and five. I'd like to get my hands on that. Um, so I I I want us to talk policy first. I want us to develop a policy on retention of fund balance for the general fund. And I'm just going to say to you right now, it ought to be a full year's budget. Folks, if a storm hits here, you know what you got to pay? You got to pay people. And we don't know what shut down. We don't know any of that. So you you can't have the same fund balance the city of Durham has, you know. So, we're we're going to need to see some policies and then we're going to say when we reach the policy in the general fund. We've done a good job of managing the general fund. Wink wink, we're not going to lower taxes, wink wink, we're going to put that extra money in the capital improvement fund or in the beach fund. Right? Most of our clients that have a financial plan and have a policy on fund balance in the general fund, when they hit that policy, when the audit comes out, everything that's over the policy

goes to a capital fund. It's onetime money, okay? And it goes to a capital operation. So, I'm hoping we can develop some policies kind of like that so that we can start accumulating reserves out of good management. You right? I mean you want to bud budget manage the general fund budget well enough that it throws out reserves. The same would be true for the beach fund and for the capital improvement fund. So, so what so what I wanted to do by just setting a context that you're spending 73% of the money that you're spending on the general fund now between capital general capital and the beach fund you'll soon be spending a lot more than 70 a lot more than 100% of that budget likely maybe we get big old grants. So, so that's sort of what I just wanted to start you with. I want us to do policy. I want us to define priorities on the capital and the beach side. And then we'll go back and look at timings, options for financing, how you blend them. Mr. Mayor, do you spend the whole 45 million on one, two, and three, or do you spend 35 now and 10 later? I mean, you know, I don't know all this, but there that was an example you gave. So, so I'm hoping we'll focus on policies and um I also hope that annually once the audit comes in we have another big policy talk okay about here's where the money is what we're going to do with the money are reserves building at a level that we want them to especially on the beach and the CIP fund so I just wanted for today's conversation. I I don't have a

five-year projection for you because I didn't want to use last year's budget. I mean, for one thing, it's not even the new tax levy. For God's sakes, we don't know what that is yet. So, but I want to set a context of policy setting, priority setting, defining dollars, defining timing. And in this outline that Dylan and I did for you, I I laid out some numbers out of the audited 2025. Some of the kind of numbers I want you to look at every year. I don't know about y'all, but I think the presentation of the audit is the boringest meeting in America because it's a whole bunch of accounting talk. You got to take the audit and then do financial planning. Audit review is not a financial plan. It's just reviewing numbers. You got to take the numbers and do financial planning out of it. So, I I pulled some numbers in this outline just just to look at. I I also am I I know the big project is out there. I just I want us to really quickly figure out if that's going to happen, what our match is, when do we need to get it? Because I know we're bound by the turtle business, right? Kind of environmental issues. Uh so a and our money comes to us we stopped paying in May. So so that that's what I wanted to set is the context for today and it's things that we've talked about in the past but haven't officially done. I'm hoping some of the policies will end up in writing will be adopted by the board as policies at the board. And then the at least an annual review of how you met your policies. where are your excesses produced by good management over collection of revenues things of that nature and so forth I will say one other thing to you and apparently it's

been discussed because I saw a handout a reval real year is really interesting when you do uh aortionment of the sales tax on the assessed value thankfully you're not population wink wink so assessed value is better um But what people do this year could have material impacts on your sales tax collections and that's outside your control. You have no control of that. So

if Doug and I I don't mean to speak for the board. I'm going to speak for myself on this one. I the feedback that I've gotten I think in our planning stuff is that probably the number one priority putting aside public safety and that kind of stuff is the beach plan. Okay. And I know it's a little bit of a chicken and egg. you've got an idea of revenues and hopefully we'll have something in the next couple of days to give you some idea of what we look like. Um, but I think if we were looking at and I'm going to talk talk to myself for a second. If I'm going to choose between the beach plan and putting in a bike path, it's a really easy decision for me. It seems to me

because our business is we're in the beach, but I think it would be important to us um if we could at least and I I would look to the board to to think about this is one is let's assume for the sake of argument we have no outside funding for the beach for the big for the one two and I'm not talking about borrowing money. I'm talking about third party money.

Okay. What size project does that look like? All right. How much money? So, if you come back to us and you say, "I'm making a number up." You guys can do a $25 million program. You're going to have to put 10 million of your own money in it, and you're going to have to borrow 15. All right? So, now over five years, I'm paying three, but I've got my M just what you did to refinance for us. We come back to us and we say to him, okay, and our beach engineer and Fran, what can you get done for 25? Right. Yeah. Because I think that to me is I we've talked to Senator Lazaro. We've talked about shallow draft everything else. But I think fundamentally we got to figure out how much money we have to spend on that. Yes, sir.

Just as a starting point because if if we can't do it, you talked about the groin. I have no idea. But I think that right now and Larry, you can chime in. I think that's a very high priority for us in terms of things that are out there. And if we don't know what that number is, I think the other thing you have made clear at least to me today is cash is king. Borrow money. spread the payments out over a period of time because that's the way you're borrow I'm never about borrowing all okay well unless with the exception of the fire truck at 0% interest I'll borrow all that but putting that aside and I think the LGC is going to look at that anyway right you can borrow money when you don't need it sir but I think from my perspective and I would ask the board to weigh in on this is

I would like to know what our borrowing capacity is to do that project keeping in mind your five to six year thing cash that we've got now. Okay. Some idea of what a reserve looks like for something happening with that. But it to me it starts with that because I think I know with Larry pushing this, we've we've been pushing this beach projects for a while. So I'm going to turn it over Mark your thoughts and then Kip and then you want me to give you a number real quick or you want to wait? If you know what the number is, what if you

Well, can I just can I just tell you what I think would be a reasonable plan? Okay. Just let's just talk through that. Okay. Then you learn about me and Dylan. And if we're dead wrong, you just say you're dead wrong. He's he's the one with a masters in mathematics from Duke. Let's just tell it. Should I have said advanced mathematics maybe? But anyway, um

um we got 15 do us. I say we put 10 of it in PGO and keep five back for to start building some reserves we need for f for four and five that we got to figure out that this is all ballparkish but I I'm going to give you the context of where I see a plan right now with the three and a half we've got that'll be coming up um 17ish million. So right now without looking any further I feel 27ish. We might find a little to go with that.

So maybe 30ish. Okay.

Notice the movements of my hands because I'm not done it all. But my point is we have some capacity but we ain't got 45 because I know roughly the fund balances in the other places. We're going to have some general fund, but folks, that 15 million that all comes back, we could technically reimburse the general fund several million dollars. But if we've already met our goal, why reimburse over our policy goal and use that for what we think is really important, our economic engine protection engine, right? The nourishment. So, we're we're in that range without any grant money. 45 years ago.

I don't want you to know. I'm just bringing this to I thought you had flip flops on. I was going to be so jealous. He's tired. I used to wear shorts. When you're talking about three coming out, we've got one less SAB payment. I think Alice, we've got I didn't realize we have one SA payment left, but when you look at that's the beach money we're looking at is that you're using three. If we don't have that anymore, my calculation is winding everything else. We're over four that comes in there. So, you don't have to address it now. Yeah. Well, we do have some operating cost in there. Several hundred,000. No, but it's here. But I'm talking about if you look at the top number, you're at five. Yeah.

Add all that stuff out. Take that out and you're four, too. Well, well, let me say this. I I I think we I keep waving my fingers because I don't want us to go to zero anywhere. So I bottom line is is we have capacity but we won't know how much capacity until we've set policy about how we're going to accumulate reserves and this that and the other

yes or the rate on taxes things of that nature. But you're you you've got some money. Okay. If we don't have the 45, which we need to talk to our engineers about because our idea of a spending plan could be completely crazy to an engineer who does beach reourishment. So bringing Chris and his crew into the conversation as to how to how to spend it that it makes sense from an engineering perspective is critical because I don't know if they need to frontend load that or they can you know how it's I don't think it's an equal equal equal

well and guys your truck haul days are over aren't they? I mean this this is all this is the expensive stuff guys do y'all y'all know the setup cost on moving this sand don't you? I mean it's gargantuan, right? But just to add to what she said though in the last couple of board meetings, may I remove my jacket last couple of board meetings and they know because I brought this up on Nazium is what we've asked Chris and Fran to do is okay can we do a scaledown project but still get one, two, and three done.

All right, and maybe use less sand. And so if you tell us we can spend X. All right, forget third party funding. We got spend X. Then Larry with BISAC and the board will go back to those guys and say, can you do this in those three phases? Because the issue we have is, and yes, it is a little bit of a political issue, but it's also a fundamental financial issue for us. If we were to do two and three and not one and a storm hits, then one doesn't have engineered beach protection. And so those are the kind of things we might have to put. And I think initially, Larry, they've told us there is an engineered beach that you can do that's not as robust as what you're talking about if you don't have the money. And I think that's Laura's point is what does that look like? So,

well, it's a good point. And and let's think about this as layering. Okay. Here again, once I can get my hands on your renourishment cost, which are generally not the same cost as to do the beach originally, but with costs going up, right? You know, you got you got to figure. So, there is a way that potentially you do a little less. It's still engineered, but a little less. And when five years is up, the renourishment of that is less than you borrowed to put it in to start with. And the extra money goes to fix it all out, you know, to add more s. Well, the pro the problem you've got uh I mean in theory what we're saying makes a lot of sense, but when you get out there and and start pumping sand from a from a disposal site

and you do go through all the expenses that it's going to take to to mobilization to get everything done, to run all the line to do everything that you've done and kiss every everybody's ring uh in trying to get it to to the point that we can that we can get it from that source. Then you you know you you you've got a big big portion of your expense right there. Then then you come in then you come in and and you didn't have that in your truck call process

and we we've talked to the engineers and and and yes we we we can they can come back to us with some kind of a number to where we could we could make those three phases engineered beaches but we will not have fixed the overall problem that we wanted to to solve short of a major hurricane. it won't be robust

and and so so you know the the the the perfect situation and of course I've I've very rarely in my life had a perfect situation but the perfect situation would be for us to be able to figure out how to to do that so that we could get it done phase five and four are not as they are not as critical and they are to the people that live there which I do

but they're not as critical but we don't have as bad a wash down those areas because we're not close to the inlet. We don't have all those problems. So, you know, the past few storms that we've had that's interfered with with phases one, two, and three have not necessarily bothered four and five in that kind of a percentage. We just had very little problem too, though. So we don't have to put as much money away for for reenourishment on phase four and five proportionately as we need for one, two, and three initially. So So I think that you know that that's where we are. We we know and recognize that

we may not have a choice because of the money and and and we need to know what that is. and and I think that uh Chris and and and Fran are supposed to be getting us, you know, they're working on numbers and feedback of what we can do and where we are. Uh because we generally have an idea of what we need if we do the whole thing and and we don't have it. And and the problem that we've got is that using, you know, going and getting money from from from governmental sources is not as easy as it has been because they don't have the money. They're they're very, you know, FEMA's having all their problems and everybody's having problems. So, you know, we're going to try all we can do to get what money we can, but we don't have the same capacity to draw from as we would have four or five years ago. Correct. So, so I think that and and I know you know this, but I'm just making sure that in our in our budgeting process that that we we all know that what the optimum is and what the what we'd like to do. We're going to figure out what we can do and is that going to be sufficient to to make it worthwhile to do one, two, and three so that we've got an engineered beach. And and I think that's really where we are because it's not going to do us any good to go up there and just put a little bit of sand and watch it wash away like it has in time past.

And Mr. Mayor, may I just say this to to the alderman on this? We're I say we're with y'all deciding that we're going to have to discuss the various funding methods. Are we going to look at municipal service district methods? Are we going to only look Well, I know, but I'm just saying. Do Wait a minute. Explain to Oh, explain to people what that means that are new to this board.

There are multiple beach towns in this state that have multiple municipal service districts. And in those municipal service districts, you levy a tax in that district. And those districts are generally done based upon the beach and the distance back from the beach. Right? And I'm just going to be honest with you. I mean, this is what it is with the largest dollars coming from the beachfront because that's how it works. And so, so some have chosen to do that. And I'm going to lay out all the options for you because you don't want to say we've never heard this. The other option is townwide levies so that it's spread equally. Um but so so those will obviously ultimately be choices. And when we see our cost layered on to $240,000 per penny, the math is interesting.

Mark, you want to add something? Yeah, I was just wanting to tag along when Larry was speaking there to make sure that everybody understands that it's my understanding is phase four and five are engineered beaches and we are able to go with FEMA to try and collect some source of but one, two, and three are not engineered and we need to get those engineered so that heaven forbid that day come we can go to FEMA. because you're 100% right and that's the whole tal if one if one two and three are hanging out there or one's hanging out there not two and three and there's a storm coming through we just didn't we didn't cover ourselves to take care of the stuff that you're talking about and I think that's been the goal so

I mean I think for sure for sure we want to do whatever we do we want to do all three phases and to to to at least to to at least engineered beach quality. And what we've been proposing is more than that. And that will give us the ability to go to FEMA, heaven forbid, we have to go back instead of us being on the hook for everything. And and so that's, you know, the whole thing is is that we had no engineered beaches. Now we've got two phases that are that are

I worked for you when you had none. So, so I think that I think that and and we're always going to have more problems on the north end unless we can get somebody to finally let us put in uh you know what we want the you know the groin and and I don't know it's such a hard I don't know why it's such a hard project to get done but anyway so so we just got to figure out and and I think that so so I I think we got to look at what's the max that we can get that makes sense. so that when they give us a number, we know what we can do. Right. That that that's sort of where we are. Go to Mark first. Mark, now what are you asking for as far as far as

Yeah. And I'd like to go down there and we'll go to Laura, but right now I think is what we've talked about before, which is trying to figure out how much money we've got, right? And what we can and can't. So the information before us right now is we have $35 million available to us. Is that correct? There is 35 in cash and he's we you can move it between funds Doug if we have to what he's looking at is and and we'll get this in the revenue stuff is right now the forecast that we've got in front of us does not include getting the 15 million back from FEMA. So technically it doesn't and it doesn't account using any of the 35 in cash we've got as the budget we'll have in front of us.

That's what I wanted to make sure we clarified was what we're talking about fundwise. We have 35 million available to us. We have 15 million that is not ours and you can't count on it till it's in the bank. That's it. um that's nothing more than a a Christmas bow. It's it's not a present for us yet. Correct. So the way I see it is uh like you said, you know, right now 71% or whatever is uh goes towards the 73. So just doing easy math, 70% of the 15 million uh comes up like like 11 and a half. So I'm comfortable with like investing 25 million and then holding 10 back for us for right now.

That's my right. And also, we've got to get the LGC to sign off on financing. I mean, what what Doug is gonna tell us and he's told me and everybody else is cash is king. Hold on to it. If you can borrow at a Now, we're not going to borrow at 30% rate. But if we can borrow cheaply, okay, and spread it over there and you match up your revenues, that's the way to fund things with with some equity in,

right? The other reason that cash is king is I've seen two times in my career where we had enormous problems borrowing at enormous cost. So when we have a time now interest rates aren't where they were two years ago, but they aren't outrageous. Why wouldn't we go at a time that we can and hold the cash for the time that we might be in an emergency on interest rates or access to borrowing markets. So I I I want to seize the markets and seize the day. I don't want a what if a lot if I know right now it can work. That's just my theory. Y'all decide, but that would be my theory.

Kip, I mean, I think I I worry about some of the things that you've mentioned, the whatifs. Uh what if the federal funding, whatever funding dries up tomorrow, you know, where where are we stuck? And that's part of the conversation that's been going on. But also, you know, we don't like to say the word, but when mother nature strikes, I'm very curious as to um what your recommendations would be for that inevitability. And and like I said, definitely learning a lot and you know, like I said, we we chatted during the the uh strategic planning uh meeting and and today. I I appreciate

and and just to follow up on on what Kip said, which is to remind everybody, FEMA is a reimbursement. Okay? And what he's talking about is I think we talked to Chris a little bit about it as well, is if you got to front it, okay? You got to have the cash. All right? It's not going to be sent to us as we get these things done. And so that reserve, I think, was your point is you got to have the reserve in there so if that H thing happens, right? Um because I think and maybe you were here Connie, we were still doing Florence work versus Thompson was able to get done and get all the work done because they had the cash to be able to front the money which we cannot be in that position again. I think is

Mr. Mayor. So you'll know and so the board will know. I don't like to brag, but I do on occasion.

Wait a minute. All our beach clients had enormous problems with FEMA because if you had a big old FEMA grant, you had to they don't pay you until they want to, but you got to pay the contractors. So, we created a financing method known as FEMA so we would go to the bank and borrow the money for you. We did multiple trunches because you didn't have the money then. And if we spend it all now on the big project or a whole bunch of it, which is another reason I want some reserve levels personally, not a member of the board, but the po the point is without that borrowing, I don't know what we would have done. I mean, so there are creative ways to get to this, but you still got to have some cash.

Well, and the other thing I think that was beautiful when you explained to us the Saabs was the collateral. The assets of the town are not the collateral for the loan. It's the FEMA reimbursement that's in the collateral. So you you're not you're not tying up capital by by trying to stand behind the loans. Yeah. Now we're in between a rock and a hard place because we we we you know without a beach we don't have a town. Uh you know our our our money will drive real quickly. So we know we've got to do something and that north end is has been beaten and beaten and beaten. So you know we really it's north one two and three. I got to get my thing. Yeah. One, two, and three. Okay. and we're starting it to

and it gets right and it gets worse as it goes down. But so so we've just got to figure out and and that's I mean and we're accepting that we're going to have to do what we can do, but we need to and things have changed since we first tal talked about doing it. I mean some so we're we're we're certainly dealing with it, but I think that you know we're we're continuing to drive forward with with our engineers trying to get the numbers together. We're we're

continuing to to have some uh conversation with with wildlife and and different folks in the core about about our accessibility to the to the to the sand that we need. But, you know, it's going to all come and it's going to hit at one time and then we got to be ready to to we've got to have a action plan. You know, what what are we going to do? So, I think that's what you're here to do. So, as long as you'll guarantee us that you'll loan us the money, if we can't get it, we're going to move forward. You can't say that because you know what he's going to say? Depends on the interest. It's It's like depend on the interest rate, isn't it? Big penalty. Connie,

I'm just going to piggy back on to everybody else and say I appreciate you helping us. And I do believe that one of the most important things we can do is set a policy on how we're going to handle the retention of funds and how we're going to move forward despite the whatifs but which always have to be absolutely

thought of but I appreciate it. Thank you. So interesting idea around doing the municipal service districts because we can just tack that on to the ones that are still in the Cobra zones too which makes it all interesting which then could affect property values which then could affect our adorum reimbursements and our sales tax. So I'd be interested to see what has happened to property values in areas that and we could do that for you because Derek County is the county that's used this aggressively. You're trying to figure out how many dominoes fall.

Yeah. Because you start adding on a municipal service district two areas that are already in Cobra zones and and see what happens to the tax rate and what you get. Exactly. Because you could force values down on and it's not a panacea. I agree to that. It's just a method that's been used by some. It's an option is what you're telling us. Yes, sir. I'm going to add real quick into that. It was 2021 um was the last time that we uh thought about doing municipal service districts and um it's part of the Army Corps project. Yeah, we hit yes. We had over 20 people speak, residents show up at our meeting that spoke against it.

Um and yeah, pitchforks. And it had also happened I want to say in 2012 as well um is when the inlet project was coming in and there was some more ideas and municipal service districts were thrown out and I'll tell you the the town's people I don't know what they do today but I know what they did in the past. Well, and let me say this to you so you'll remember and you do, Mayor Protemporary. We ran the numbers for you based upon economics provided by management and the on the beach front, the tax that it would have taken because folks, that project from the core of engineer, the dollars it was going to cost, I could never figure that out. We talked to them two or three times. They wouldn't tell you where it was coming from.

Uh the front district was going to exceed the $150 that's allowed under statute. So that's what we were talking about. So yeah,

so living on a sandbar as we do, you know, and keeping public safety at the core of what we do. And I know we don't like to talk the h word, but I don't know if we have any stats around what happened to departments too in the cleanup for the two years after the storms and looking at our expenses then. Um because keeping cash reserves for operational as well as beach reourishment have to be part of this plan. Oh, no question.

Yeah, I remember talking to uh Steve Smith who was the mayor of Thompson and he was talking about and I've talked to the county people about this. If a storm comes through, you have to assume you're not going to get rentals. The interesting thing though is you're going to get more sales tax because of the rebuild. And so they said it's not the fact that we are getting a split and getting more sales tax and stuff at least will offset some of the loss. But if you remember what happened to Villa Capriani, how long before they could rent? Two years because they got mold in there. So all that tax went away. So Larry, did you want to add anything else or you good? Okay. All right.

Well, I think you're you're obviously gonna have a new manager one day. I know you're in the process. It seems to me there'll be a planning process to figure out when we get all this done. I would personally someday like to come down here and maybe stay overnight and go out for a good seafood meal. Um, and speak to the engineers. You can stay with me if you don't charge me by the hour. Well, I would do that, too. I I uh And I got the seafood boil for you. Got the seafood boil. Hey, I would just like to talk to the engineers myself and figure this out because I found in general that engineers are aggressive on how quick they need money and how much money they need. And so I'm I'm one of these testers on that.

Well, that's a good point and I think that once they get there

once uh you know And and that's a good point. I think that sometimes some, you know, we we're sort of like the middle guy here. Yes. And and we we we we kind of know what it is that the engineers are doing, but we're not engineers. And and I think that and you kind of know how to get money, but you don't know exactly what they need. And I don't know how quickly. So they're they're working they're working on they're working on some some projected numbers now. And and we we very well at that point in time could have you down and let's have a meeting to talk about this because I believe that I mean they're the ones that know what they can do and what they can't do. Yeah. Yeah.

You're you're the head of BISAC. You might want to you know at least tune them in for some of that discussion as well because you know you're free to talk to Chris and and we can we can uh and so so we'll we'll work on that scenario. And I just wanted to make sure you and you do know because we've talked about it, but this this is one of our as far as I'm concerned, this is one of our main issues and as far as the town's concerned for economics of North Opsel Beach has got to be Yeah. You know, got to be fixed.

I'm confused there. So, are we Doug, you're wanting to talk to Chris and the engineering crew and do does that need to be a board meeting? Does that need to be bisc and you all and Chris? What does that look like from a meeting? That's it's just going to be you talking to the beach engineers because it's going to take you a time to get educated and also you're going to have to tell them what they need and they're going to have to tell you what they need. So yeah, I I've got and then they would report back to us. Mayor Cromper will remember this. When we were working with the Army Corps of Engineer, I sent them 14 questions. If you want to see them someday, I still have them and they couldn't answer half of them. Yeah.

And most of it was cost oriented. And so I want to folks, we can talk cost all day long, but do we knew when we have to spend it when a check has to be written? What can we do to bring back the project a little? Uh how do we do a renourishment after you got to put all of that together in the plan so that maybe we could do what we say is have it a little less now still engineered and figure out in five years can we get part of that money back. All of that is done by understanding time flows and engineering costs,

right? And and they've committed to us to try to figure out and Alice, we've talked to them a number of times about this. The preference of this board, I believe, is to get one, two, and three sand and become engineered beaches. And if there's a little less sand on it, that's better than having one of those be excluded. Is that fair? What is the timing roughly on this?

Next year, we'd be it it'll be done by this time next year if we do it correctly. If if things work out, the plan the plan uh the plan the plan the plan was the plan was that that now about in this time frame uh we would have begun setting up some uh some laying some pipe and doing some things. So you would start in the fall and then and then then in the in the late fall of this year we would have started that would have pumping that would have gone into next spring. We're we're getting into the weeds, but the bottom that's not that's not going to happen right now.

The bottom line is we're we're permitting. We're looking at funding. Those the permitting is going on right now. What Larry's talking about is you there's certain things you can do that are not in the turtle system that he just described that could be done. But because the equivalent is 3,000 trucks a day or something like that, in theory, it takes two and a half. We're so much better off. If we can do it, we can do the whole thing in a couple of months. Yeah. Few months. Few months. So we're saying 45 now. So well and this started out you got to understand palpitation. I'm in a good mood right now. If he can get us seven years instead of six, but you know and originally originally we were only looking at having to come up with 10

with 10 11 10 or 11 or 12 12 something like that. And and we were going to be able to get the rest of it. But see that's that's changed now. Has that gone by the wayside? Well, no, it's not completely gone, but we It's harder to get a commitment and it's harder to get as much money. So, it's almost, you know, and we don't know because so much of that money's been used in in different parts of of the state and all with other problems, floods and all these things. So, we we don't know how much money that we can get. We're still going to try to get some of that money.

Right. We've already talked to Senator Lazar, but what he he said with the dysfunction that's going on in Raleigh right now, we're not going to know whether we can get specific North Thompson Beach funding this it'll be this summer. The county is committed to work with us to try to help us get that funding because you a year if you can't find out in time. Is that what happens? I think what we'll do is if you tell us we can borrow $30 million, we'll probably do the project and figure out the rest of it later. But now, is it the worry if we do it, we'll never get any grant money? I mean, I'm just we're just talking, right? We don't know. The big worry is if we don't do it and we have another big storm, we're in worse shape.

So, the point is I got you. Well, if I got that policy all day long, I I'm good with that. I wanted to ask the question. I mean, if we lose the beach more now because we wait a year. We're not going to have I got you. Okay. We won't ever be able to get the money. Well, then we Right. I'm sorry. I interrupt you for a minute. Right. the numbers would get exponentially worse. More sand. Right. Right. What what we've got to do with y'all, which is why meeting with the engineers is probably a pretty neat thing, is we got to figure out when you need the money.

We got to work on because folks 90 it's a 90-day process for the LGC. It's going to take weeks and months to get ready before the 90 days. So I I don't know the start date. So I don't know the backup date. So, somebody's got to talk through that. December, January start, which means we got to start this summer figuring everything out. All right, Lars, what's our next agenda? I Do you have anything else you want to give with us, Doug?

I do not. Other than I want to do today what you wanted to do. I know you went to look at a five-year projection, but I ain't got a budget to do it off of. So, y'all know that. So, I I wanted to set the stage. I'm prepared to set the stage more if you want to. So that's up to you. We'll hang around for a while. Sure.

Yeah. Mr. Mayor, Mr. Mayor, before I move, can I say just one thing as a point of per personal privilege. I go to Blowing Rock a lot because we own a home in near Blowing Rock. And um this woman has done a wonderful job for this town and I believe she'll do a wonderful job for Blowing Rock. It was your advantage to have her and now I expect to see her on the sidewalks of Blowing Rock spending retail money in the town. Thanks, Doug. hurt you. Did you say you have more?

Doug, I thought you said you don't have more for us. Do you have more for us? More if you want to keep going. No, no, no, no. I don't have more. I'm done with I wanted to say. Yeah. Yeah. I just wanted to say more if you had more questions. No, we'll just put you and Larry in a room. Okay. What about Dylan? Go, Dylan. You absolutely pleasure to be here. Tell tell Dylan he's he's the money guy. The other guy's a talker. Well, Dylan's a good talker, too. But Dylan Dylan Dylan is I was going to say, you know, I'll let the big man do the work here. But but Dylan, you're using spreadsheets. What are you using for all these? You were building the quant out of

Yeah. And um you know, I do have to thank Mr. Andrew Carter for setting up our budgetary model that we've been using. That's you know, our proprietary uhh usage most of our clients here in North Carolina. But um yeah, we have a great system that we've used throughout to you know give prudent conservative modeling that can show us you know what is the type of financing. Um well Andrew likes to say the model is agnostic to type but what's the best way we can really find a way to achieve the goals of the town? And it's a living model that that's what we really wanted is something where you know Mark says what if we do this you know if we delay it a month or we do because one of the things they talked about with shallow draft and I'm getting way off subject is according to Chris you get the money back faster. Now I don't think you can plan for that like you know versus FEMA but you know things like if the 15 million comes in you know then what happens all those type of variables will be very helpful to us as a town because cash is king to Doug's point. So thank you guys. And if you guys are willing to hang around, we may have more questions for you.

Sure. All right. Where do you want to go? Okay.

After um streets are done, I believe lunch will be here. After streets are done, I believe lunch will be here. So, you wait until the streets are completed before the food can get delivered. Anything that has to do with manual labor for do before I eat? Thanks. If uh if I may, I have two two points of clarification on the uh 10545 public works general fund. Just for clarification to the board. Okay.

Um the M&R equipment fund which was the point of discussion before uh I jumped back and took a seat that 37,000 going into this FY the board budgeted for 16,000 and in October GWI amended that and doubled it due to the consumption. We were we were depleted in that budget line completely. So what you see as a remainder is is double what was budgeted this last year. and that those remaining funds are are going to be allocated to a zeroturn mower that I have not turned into maintenance under the state contract yet. The justification for that is I was I was hoping to submit something to the board for approval in terms of purchase of a piece of equipment that fulfills that capability but also provides uh snow clearing to the town based off of the the snowstorm. So, I just wanted to give that to you all for consideration. prefer you try to find one that doesn't have snow clearing um capabilities. It's something that is uh maybe a nice to have but not a need to have in the last 30 years. Anytime that there's been snow left in on this in the town for more than like three days has probably been less than less than four times.

Well, well, the benefit to it and again I don't want to get ahead of myself. It's not just that. It's it's a it's a mower. It has snow capabilities with the attachments that it comes with. So, there's multiple sections that it can support the town and its function. So, so that offset is kind of a which direction does the town want to go if if we're purchasing a new piece of equipment or most inexpensive. We're we're um this is a hard year for people to we're trying to keep uh their their tax rate down. We're trying to do whatever we can to keep the budget down. just as you would in your own household budget on a year that you had so many expenses going up

understood just to the point was it hadn't been depleted and it also again it got doubled less than six months of me being here and there's additional cost I'm not going to debate the budgets because I'm just presenting when we're comparing stuff we're comparing about stuff that was modified during the year versus the original stuff I prefer to take a look at what it was originally and say how did it What you're saying is we already increased it once and now you're increasing it again. I'm not saying that's right or wrong. I'm saying that's what happened. So, let's go to streets.

Well, I I did have one clarification question because we didn't talk salaries for staff whatsoever. So, I just want to make sure the board has no concerns or issues with what was presented. I I I wouldn't say that. If if salaries are an issue for you as department head and you want to bring a suggestion to the board, um I think you should do that. Bring that to bring that to your supervisor, which would be the town manager. I think what he's saying, he's already he's already presented. We didn't we didn't Nothing's approved, Larry. Nothing. We didn't approve or deny your budget or the increases requested. That's still an open conversation. Yes, ma'am. No, I I understand that part. We just we very quickly ended that conversation.

From a from a

at least from my perspective and I think from the board's perspective, we can't approve expenses until we understand the revenue side of this and what that balance sheet and income statement looks like. If we were to have a bunch of expenses that showed that we are in this huge deficit and we're we're spending $2 million more than when I know we're not. That's not what but if that was to happen then I think the board would probably look at it and say maybe there's stuff we got to cut out of this. That's why we can't do oneoffs on this kind of stuff because it goes back to what Doug talked about which is what are your priorities? What are you trying to accomplish? That's with respect to equipment. That's respect to all that stuff. So no more lecture. Let's go to streets. Wow. Okay. Uh again, pending any questions, these numbers are the same that I submitted last time, unless there's any concerns from the board. I I I know we're I think we're clear on this striping is actually the crosswalk,

correct? Right. And remind me, I thought that you put in there that these were basically the Villa Capriani DOT requires that style of crosswalk installed. Yes, sir. Bill Capriani's model is how we budgeted or or calculated that total cost. I'm sorry. You're telling me that DOT is requiring that for new crosswalks? For all new crosswalks that didn't have a a previous crosswalk installed, we're installing at brand new locations. Thermal plastic paint, rapid reflecting beacons, the up-to-date signage. These that model is the new minimum DOT requirement is what I understand from DOT. Okay. I I would like you to verify that because my source I have sir that's fine.

Right. Thank you. So that's changed from our last year budget when we thought we could pick and choose whether we could just do stripes or do the electronic. They changed their standard. I'm I'm just I'll defer to Mr. Cox who's my point of contact at DOT for division 3. He's the one that directed any new any new locations. This is the requirement moving forward. Okay. All right. So that changes it. And then how much did we spend on that one? like 30 30 it's about $35,000. And then we had had about 17 we were looking at. Is that correct? 17 crosswalk. Five. He narrowed it down to five. Five locations. Five. That was that presentation you made with the interactive map. Right.

Correct. And I do have responses on calls we put out for for quotes engineering firms to move that forward. Now I'm a little bit confused about the math. Five times 35 is a is $175,000 and we've got $250,000 on here. Are you got do you have more than those five in the budget? That was the cost from a year ago. Costs have gone up on materials. I can't give you labor cost increases until until we get further along. How many crosswalks do you have in the $250,000? Five. So we're set you've got us going up to 50,000.

Okay. Thank you. The most recent quote I received from a vendor from an engineering firm to design and then go to bid and con and contract for construction was 254 for the whole thing for all five crosswalks. So that's my reference point. state where you don't see I don't see these crosswalks maybe I see legal issue that's not find out.

Yeah. And and the other thing I forgot to mention on this one, too, is I've already talked to the county about this and two of these crosswalks are at county county areas and I think we can get them to contribute. I don't know if they'll pay $50,000. I doubt they're going to pay $50,000 for a crosswalk, but um we brought that up when Alice and I were dealing with the uh the Birdman. Well, and and again um they haven't been here forever in a day. Knock on wood, we haven't had any major issues. It's just like speed limit 35 and 45. You know, I'd love to see more information. Um has have there been any issues other than No,

and it's it's the same thing we have with when I was at Western Carolina. uh you know normally you need to build the uh university or the area and not put the first piece of concrete down and let the people walk around and you once you find that where the goat trails are then you go lay put the concrete. So, uh, to that's bar's a fair comment because I can tell you that because if we put all those crosswalks up just like everybody here and everybody watching, everybody in North Topsel knows not everybody uses that crosswalk. They cut through the ditch, they cut across and then the people that do use a crosswalk 50% of the time they don't push the button.

So, just huge huge expense there. Well, and originally we looked at just striping and signs, you know, so if the state's changing what we have to do, they need to come up with some money or we need to go to the county for some money because I don't think we should pick that all up on our own if they're changing the requirement and then telling us they're not helping out when it's crossing a state road. And and and just to make sure everybody understands, I'm all for the crosswalks. I'm all for rumble strips, notification, whatever. But th this amount of money is absurd.

Well, this is just it's his report based on what they've told him to do. So, this is a board this is a board conversation, not a budget. But that's my only concern. Yeah.

No, I mean, as we were saying too, we we talked to the county and the county has talked about doing some of the at the county beach accesses. the the question is whether or not what level they're going to be at, but yeah, I think, you know, I'm just trying to do a quick Google search here to to see what the requirements are for for the flashing lights and not and I I don't see where it's required. So, yeah, if you could I mean, obviously, you spoke to the man and and he's going to give you the most up-to-date information, but I think obviously that weighs heavily on our planning. I' I've got two updated manuals I can send anybody on the board for the listing of the requirements.

Okay. I I just know in the last discussion I had with them they said recommended versus required and those are two different standards of what KIP is saying. That's what you're saying. We're not upset with you. We're upset with the state wanting to dictate a standard for us. They don't participate in the funding. Yeah. I'm not going to belabor the crosswalk thing. We Yeah. Um uh tell me about the capital outlay again.

Uh pardon me streets capital outlay that is um was intended as a god excuse me

uh 24,000 of that was allocated towards a second VMS board for the town. So, we had a mobile video messaging system uh where we could place one on each end of the of the town. Uh the other 200,000 is uh basically a placeholder and intent to identify what what will end up absolutely growing for a need uh for repaving the town roads. So, we have out of the street paving and repair budget line, we we just got a PO approved to have a pavement specialist conduct their DOT survey on all the town roads and give us a report. They'll be coming before the board and reporting

with that will be a a life cycle cost what it's going to cost to bring our roads up to that's his contingency average standard. So, that's just the starting point. Okay. Thank you. That's your contingency. I'm the next one. So, I'll just sit here and wait. Yeah. Unfortunately, I have several. and out any anyway is it?

Yeah. The the only main adjustment here is uh is the uh increase in the base request and that's specifically due to uh a growth in cart services throughout the town with GFL. Okay. This is this is an in and out though. This is we have not been billing it. Now we're going to be billing it. So we'll have revenues to offset any increase in expenses. Correct. Yes, sir.

Last one. Thank goodness. recreation uh limited increase across the board for for things like snowflakes. The the target here is going to be park maintenance. Again, pouring money into Richard Peters Park, Nolles Park, getting those signs updated, boardwalks updated. Um, I know I know we have landscaping services and things within those park areas, but bring bringing some of those areas up in terms of uh refreshed uh recreational areas within the parks. The uh cap or excuse me, M&R dock and boardwalk specifically is focused on uh the one at Nolles Park and the two at Richard C. Peters Park. And the intent behind that is to do a uh a rehab very similar to the the Dolphin Shores project that we're currently trying to move forward on. That's that's where those funds or that cost comes from.

Thank you on that because the I've been out there before and actually alerted Alice a year or two ago. Um there's been times that uh the weather has just made those areas unsafe. Thank you. Anybody?

All intended.

Let us know.

All right. Well, thank you. Uh, apologies for not being here last round. Um, Deputy Chief Harley did a fantastic job from what I saw um for his first presentation. So, that was that was pretty thrilled for him. Um, I gave y'all some paperwork that y'all requested at the last meeting. Um, years of service, longevity, um, how long they've been with the town, all that information. And then, uh, Alderman Malcolm, he requested some specs for a boat. That is not the boat, but it has the equipment and stuff like that what we would be looking at. So, if you see it says 29 foot on there, we are not looking for a 29 foot boat. So, those are just general specs. So, I just wanted to point that out real quick. Um, all right. So, I guess I'll do like chief captain page. Um, the line items didn't really fluctuate that much. Some came down, some went up a few hundred. Uh, is there anything specific in the line items other than the last one? Just Okay. So the the somewhat humor in that is that as I mentioned to the chief that they had a million dollar increase um in their capital things and unbeknownst to him that apparently is the firetruck that we're not going to get for two or three years and so the idea was we're all of a sudden going to spend a million dollars today. I think he thought because we might have to reserve something against it.

So, yeah, we can get back to the accounting rules, but I'm pretty sure you don't have to reserve until you sign that contract. Correct. Um, so the thought process was if the town wanted to begin encumbering funds to set aside to pay for that $1.8 million. And so that's where that $600,000 for the ladder truck comes into play and the 400,000 for the boat. So that's where the million dollars come from is both items. Um so that obviously that's a

and also what we also we talked about is you're going to be looking for funding sources. Like right now we are paying if you look at our numbers we're only paying $70,000 a year. I'm sorry a month. No, a year for the current firetruck for So $70,000 a year is different than a million dollars. So that's what I was getting ready to go. I'm not good at math, but I'm pretty good at that math. Um, so

the good thing about the delay in the build of these trucks is that'll give us two to three cycles to apply for the same grant that we got for the previous truck. Um, now the way that grant worked was we had to have a signed contract, we had to have a design of the truck, and we had to have a delivery date. So all that stuff will have to be in play before I can go to them seeking the grant. So but if okay let's just talk about timing. Let's just say for the sake of argument we just take this line autumn off. Yes. Okay.

You then over the next year would be working on exactly what you talked about. You'd get an agreement on the on the whatever we're using whatever you've got direction on. You'd have an idea from them whether they're going to finance it or not. Right. You have to have a contract with them, but you're gonna have a discussion with them as to whether you can get financing for this before you sign the contract. Well, I mean, that would be the hopes, you know,

right? But I'm saying though, so if you came back, I'm just using I'm looking at time value money and everything else. If you came back to the board six months from now and said, I have got contract for this piece of equipment. I've got financing locked up and the, you know, Lars has looked at this and said, "We're going to pay $80,000 a month." All right. And you've got the financing lined up. Then you don't have the same encumbrance issues that we've got in terms of holding cash. So all of a sudden that money gets freed up. You've come back to something at the board that looks like what you just got done. I mean, from my perspective, that's much more attractive than a million dollars out for next year. So, um, but is that what you would and I would talk to both you guys that have worked on this, that's the way it generally works is you figure out, you know, like we just talked to Doug. If we can't finance it, we don't, you know, we'd love to do the beach project, but if we can't pay for it or we can't finance it, then it's a different decision.

Well, I have I have to have approval from the board as well as management because I can't do the contract. Correct. Town manage. So I So I have to seek y'all's guidance and approval to give me the permission to do that step. Absolutely.

Well, no, no, that's that's fine. I'm just saying I don't even get to vote unless it's a tie. My point though is I would never approve a budget that's got a million dollar line item into it like this because this is assuming somehow that we are going to spend a million dollars next year, which we're not under any scenario. Okay. The most the worst this would be accounting wise would be it be restricted funds. We'd still be earning interest on So you're not going to spend it next year. You are going to spend it. It's just not going to be next year. The the concern is if and I understand your if we don't get consensus to move forward, this 1.8 is going to balloon, right? Because speaking with one of the vendors, they just changed the uh power platform and the trucks they go with the engine, not the but the engine, the motor, and it price went up $100,000 just because they switched an engine. Um, so

what you're talking about, which I love in my business, they're called options. Yep. Once you've locked in the price, you know what the price is going to be. You know what the financing is going to be. All I'm saying is that from my perspective, from the town, committing a million dollars without even knowing any of the things you're talking about, what it's going to cost or anything else, and saying we are going to set aside a million dollars for something when it is more likely than not, we will f according to him, we will finance this in one way or another and not be making a million dollar payment in one year. Does that make sense? Does that does that make sense to everybody? Because otherwise it's it's backwards. Right.

Right. But are you saying in order to get the truck started, we have to commit to get the truck started? Yes. I need permission from the board and the management to move forward because you got think it's going to take me six months to go to different shows, see new technology and all that. Then it's going to take us another three to five months to sit down with whatever whatever company we choose to go with and design the truck, you know. Um, so you're looking at almost a year in build time. I mean, upfront of specs and everything else on the truck, right? And that go ahead.

So, it occurs to me there's two basically two two policy points. One, you've already kind of summarized them, but decision to buy a truck and the method it's going to be funded, whether it's lump sum, we're paying ourselves, building a reserve, or we're going to finance the entirety. I mean that's that's so and also remember this is to your exact point this a blind number you don't know.

Well no I do know that. So I submitted 1.8 1.5 to 1.8. That's where the trucks we're looking at for the 75 ft platform like we have now currently. Um that's the range they're in. Now there are a few that jump over $2 million and we're not even million is $3 million. No sir. That's one point. It's 1.8. It's 1.5 to 1.800 for three years. He's basically 600 set aside on next year million dollar increase in his

600 is the truck, 400 is the boat. We were setting aside, this is like Larry just mentioned the two options either to build cash and pay or to finance. This is in the event of building cash to pay. We're setting aside 600 next year, the year after, and on the third year, you would be at 1.8 and place the order. Well, the truck would be coming. Truck would be coming in. Yeah. Well, you'd be paying for the order. It's got 100% of the boat in it, not spread over three years from what you just said. Otherwise, the boat's made. I mean, and I would defer to the chief is for the boat purchase. Is that something like to do upfront next year or try to defer it?

So, what we're trying to do with the boat is we're trying to get the FEMA grant. We've been trying this past year. We applied for the FEMA grant. To apply for the FEMA grant based off town policy is I need approval from the board as well. The FEMA grants a 10% match. We have applied for it this past year. The problem is when they were supposed to award those contracts, the government shut down. They reopened and they've shut down again. So, no one still has any clarity if they've been awarded anything from the past FEMA grants. Um, but is the is the open on the table that you don't know if you have commitment from the board to get a new firet truck?

Yes. And then that's you know that's part of putting it in there was to seek board approval to move forward to buy a new fire truck. Correct. That's why it's in the budget be delivered for three years. Correct. But you have an idea of pricing. Correct. And then we all figure out how to finance that basically. So he still needs Okay. First off, we can't make the decision here. This is not a decision making. Exactly. But in May, do we need that on the

agenda? You can put that on the agenda, but I can tell you my objection to this, and I know I said I don't get the vote, is you got to have really solid numbers before you bring something back like that. And I think what we've been doing is giving you the permission to pursue this with the town manager to make sure all the ducks are in a row because my view is we have spent now $8 million in the fire department Alice in the last three years. Fire truck, fire station, everything else. We've never committed that kind of I'm not saying it's not necessary. I'm just telling you that's that's how much money more than any other department. Okay? more than the total public service department or cost of the of the police department during that period of time. And now we're talking about committing another $2 million, putting us at about $10 million for the fire department over a three or four year period. If it's necessary, willing to look at it again, but I'm right back to what Carter was talking about. This is much easier to swallow if we know we're going to get a financing right on the boat. you know what we're working with on the county because I got that pulled off. They were going to do their own deal. All right. So, we'll figure out whether they're willing to give us some money towards that. I'm just saying I don't I am nervous, not from a public service standpoint to have committed $10 million to the fire department over four years.

Well, and I agree with you, right? It's been a lot of money, but since the inception of the fire department, no money had been invested into it. So, now we're playing catchup. Unfortunately, you know, that's where we're at. We're having to play catchup. 100 100% agree with you, but catchup can be over two years or over two months. Well, unfortunately for the firet truck, uh we're we're governed by the state, you know, your ISO rating, which affects your insurance and NFPA. So, we have marks we have to hit. Now, is NFPA sending the police down here next week to make sure we have a truck at the 30-year mark? No. Okay.

But we have to budget and project for those replacement costs, right? All I'm talking about is from my perspective and I'll let the board weigh in on this. I would like to understand what the annual cost this town is going to be to do that. Okay? Because I'm just making this up. If we had to spend $2 million on the firehouse on the new fire truck and not do the beach project, I think we would have some people object to that. All right. So, I'm just I'm just throwing that out. So, yeah, it's I I have a problem with this being a line item in a budget year when we know just what you described, we're not going to be committing a million dollars this year, next fiscal fiscal year,

but we have to budget for it. Right. Right. So, I I I think we're having a failure to communicate here. All right. So, we have a capital a capital dollar amount that we need to either have our finance guy figure out how to finance or if we're going to be pay as we go. To your point, you the life cycle of the purchase, you can't nail down this dollar amount to the penny anyway. We're probably to the 50 grand because as we go along in the build, it's going to change and you're going to have a not to exceed probably on the truck, right? But the

city has to design it. Yeah. No, once we once the town signs a contract, that price is locked. It's locked. Okay. So, we're not at the point of getting the contract yet. And you think it's going to take time to shop to get to figure it out. When do you think you'll have something for us to look at in the form of a contract? Um to go to different conferences, see what's out there, look at the new designs because you know like our truck is a double axle at 75 ft. Now they're single axles with 75 ft ladders. So technology has come right way ahead of where we're at. Um,

so is it in this next year's budget or not? Do we think sometime in fiscal? Absolutely. Okay. So, sometime in the next fiscal year, you're going to have a number for us. Correct. Okay. So really the board has to decide whether it's in your budget at all or we take it out of reserves once you get a contract and and we reassign to your department or we've figured out with our financing guy how he can finance 100% correct. So next steps are you just have more stuff to do. Right. Okay. Correct. And I think that if he brings it back to us as a budget adjustment next year. All right. If you bring it in as a budget adjustment to next year with all those details in there,

all right, and you say, "I need to sign this contract. I've talked to Doug Carter, okay, our financing guy. This is how much I think I can get financed." And he'll give you a ballpark. He'll tell you what the payments are going to be and everything else. You guys come before us and say, "Hey, I got to have this. It's critical. Here's the structure I've got. I managed to get some money from a grant. I got the county to kick in on this and he's going to finance this and now we're paying $100,000 a year to get you everything you want. I don't think you're going to have any problems. And and if that's what y'all want, if that's the consensus, I'm fine with that. Typically, that would go through finance, right? The finance seeking the financing direction and making that. That's what he's that's what he's going to give you.

This is third party Doug guy, right? The two and Yeah. Yeah. And and just so we uh are clear on this uh 27 year old fire truck when it hits the 30-year mark, is that a st state mandate that has to be taken out of service? NFPA standard. So it has to come out of service. So we have to have a decision made before the 29year point. Definitely sooner. Exactly. It depends on the manufacturer. 400 The last one I talked to was 438 days. So little over year.

Little over a year. Um and then there's some that are over three years, you So, but if you came back to us in September and said, "Here's all the documents. Here's everything else." Then you're going to want us to pull the trigger and make the decision and go, "Well, why can't we do this? Why why can't why can't we give him permission or whatever it has to be to go look for a truck?" I think we already have that. Well, so and then and then he when he gets when he gets ready to he's done all his seeking and when he gets to the point that he's ready to do a contract, this is what I think you're saying. Bring it back here. Then bring it back here and then we'll figure out how to make it fly. You just need something to c y au to say go get it,

right? And and I get that. So, and and but it doesn't have to be, you know, if if we're because you're not making a commitment until when you find a truck and you find everything that you need, then you say, "Okay, I need $150,000." Whatever you need for this truck and you're going to need it over this time period. Correct. Okay. Why don't we leave this as I'll add it to the board agenda for May since we're not going to make decisions here. Right. All right. For budgeting purposes, I would like to take the million dollars out of here because that that takes the fund from a 600,000 you're taking out of there. There's another 400,000. 400 of that is the boat. I haven't heard anybody say they want to pay $400,000 for a boat yet.

Well, but that's where the million's coming from. 600 combination of the truck. No, I understand that. I would like to talk about the boat. Let's talk about the boat. Let's talk about the boat. Okay. Um the boat, where would you be able to launch it from? Is would you also be able to launch it like from anywhere? Depends on the type of boat. If we go at the jet drive boat like we're looking at, yes, we could typically back right off the north end, launch it straight from there, or we can go to the the underneath the bridge where we currently launch our boat at. Um, but we have talked about uh putting a dock at the town park and having it where we can just drop it straight in the water and go straight from there.

It would have a shallow draft enough that you could get Yes, ma'am. And you wouldn't have to ask for any sort of judging project or anything? No, ma'am. That's that's why we're looking more of a jet drive boat. Yeah. Um because currently with our 16 ft boat we have with the outboard on it, we struggle with it getting in and out of places. And the the town park location would give you uh that could all be uh quarantined off except for emergency personnel because we're launching down here. You got to fight entire crowds. Correct. Um, we would utilize the north side of the dock and like we're discussing with the jet ski dock behind the fire station currently, you know, it would have a gate where people couldn't they still use the dock and the launches and all that. They just wouldn't have access. Same as a game warden boat down there at Surf City.

Correct. So the so the boat that you have now, how long is it? How big is that one? 16 foot. 16 foot. And this one was is we're looking somewhere 23 25 foot. And of of course the the fire truck is still a bigger priority than the boat at this time, although Yes, ma'am. This is still a priority up there. Are there any grants available for boats that you know about that? We we have applied for the FEMA grant for the boat um this past year and like I said, they've been closed and open and reclosed. Um but that's 10%. The pro No, no, we pay 10%. I was going to say 10% of $330,000 is not a not a big grant. Yeah, the town would pay 9010.

Yes. 9010. Um the problem with the FEMA grant is every year they switch out equipment you can put in for and not apply for. So, uh the year previously boats were not on there. So, when it opened up this past year, we applied for it again. Um so, we we are seeking grants. What's the firehouse subs? So, they do up to $40,000. It's limited on what you can apply for as well. We were going to apply for AEDs and a um Lucas device which is does

chest thank you chest compressions automated chest compressions. Um unfortunately we didn't make the deadline for that. So and is the boat like the truck where um once you had approval or you had funding to to get it, it still you have to put in the specs. It has to be built to your specifications or do they already come? So, the shells are already they've already built the shells. Uh, it comes down to the electronics and motors and stuff like that that you'll you'll have to get into the weeds on. That's where the you'll get into the weeds on your design like a fire pump. Nozzles and all that stuff. And how how many jet skis do we have at this time? Two.

We have two jet skis as well. And we have the 16footer. And how old is that 16? It's a 200 four, I believe. So, what's wrong with that one? It's inadequate for our service. Um, it barely will get up on plane in the inlet. Uh, we can't go out the inlet into the ocean to do any beachfront. Uh, it's uh it's very inadequate. Our guys, we have to rotate every hour because there's nowhere for them to get out of the sun. Um, so it's taking a toll on them, you know, operationally trying to be out on it and use it, you know, for six, eight hours at a time.

I I I would suggest we kind of do the same thing we can put on the main meeting. The only thing I don't understand about this is why you're putting firefighting capabilities on this boat. That that takes the price and probably doubles it. I know because I paid for one up in Boston. The one you got right here has got a nozzle on the front of it to firefight. Yeah. So if these are beach rescue, we've got statistically 7% of your calls are related to fire. 80% are related to beach rescue. So that's your stats, not mine. No. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Um so the capability is on on this waterway right here. We only have access to the front of a house, right?

It gives us access to the the back side of a house as well if we need it. Um, you know that it's that old adage, it's never worth the money till you need it. Um, I agree with you, right? Our stats are low for the fire side of it. It would be used more for rescue, but that 1% when we do need it to get on the back side of these homes on the waterway is worth its weight. That's like the snowb blower though. Yeah, not exactly. Hang on. It's not even close. Hang on a second though. What firefighting capabilities does Turkey Creek have in their boat? They have nothing because they don't have the water. What does the county have?

Uh they have one Carolina skiff out at Bear Creek on the opposite side. They have no firefighting either. No sir. So this might be something when you and I are talking to them about working with them and getting some stuff. They kicked just so everybody knows there was an item on the uh Monday agenda for them to create a fire captain special ops which was going to be doing your job out here. Well, I thought it was.

And after talking to them at length, they've pulled that. I've been assured by all of the commissioners out there that they want to work with us to see if we can do stuff together. As in maybe they give us money for stuff, too. So this this seems to me right up that type of thing where we could go to them and because they're committing money. They're going to commit money to us on this. And actually, I know you were laughing when they when I talked to, you know who I talked to about this. They he was told he could do all this stuff for $200,000 a year and put people on the beach and do firefighting and everything else. I'm like, add another zero, buddy. And and just to refresh everybody's memory, uh it's probably been a good five or six years ago, Surf City had a house fire and it went from one house to five houses and only one fire truck could go in there and as soon as it set up, all the other trucks were dominoed behind it and couldn't access the fire and the firemen were exhausted by running two miles to get to the fire scene. Whereas if they'd had a a firefighting boat,

I'm 100% with you, but I can tell you the fire boat he's talking about. I I understand that. I'm just saying it would be advantageous and it would be available for this is deja vu. We we heard all this his his assistant talked about all these numbers and some of these same questions were asked of him that now we're asking again if if this is a bone of contention it needs to come before the board. We don't need to keep talking about Larry. It wasn't. That's why it was We talked to the man. He stood there fire truck. We never talked about a fire boat. We never talked about any of that stuff. Go back and listen to it.

I did. So, my point though is you and I talked about it before about what was in there and everything else. And and I think the consensus I'll put it on the agenda both of those if you can help me phrase it the right way for what you're looking for and then we can add it to the agenda and talk about it in May. Does that make sense? Are you talking the county agenda or our agenda? No, our agenda. Okay. When would you go to the county on this? I'll talk to them this week, but they're not going to make they haven't done their budget yet.

Okay. That's not what I thought he was going to come to us with. And and you all bear with me. He's going to go back and say, "Look, I'm looking to get your approval to go forward to find out what kind of what kind of fire truck I need, how much it's going to cost. Talk to Carter. I need your approval for me to go forward with that process. When you've got that done, then you would come back to us as the board and say, "Here's what I've got. Give me the approval to do it." If we have to do that at budget, I would do the same thing with the fireboat. Go up and say, "Mr. Carter, can you f you know, and similarly, he's going to tell you yes or no, right? I think I can find I can finance this boat over 10 years. I don't know what the number is." All that stuff. You come back, ask us what you're looking for. ask what per permission you need from the board to pursue it because you're not going to know the final numbers or the or the schedule until you actually get close to sign the contract and you're looking for our our approval to go ahead and pursue that. Is that fair?

Correct. Does that make sense?

So then we can take that million dollars off. Yes. Yes. So, we're taking it off, but we're also giving you verbal commitment that we are obviously following your suggestion of interested in the project. Correct. Just to make it clear. Yeah, I got it. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Thank you. Let's see where we are. So, what do we have next? Yeah, let me look.

Well, the last the last two, if we want to look at them as far as departmental, um it's probably just as easy. It's the committees which is a uh if you look on your paper it's a it's a oneline item. It's just expense funds set aside should the committees need uh any cost reimbursement. Um and then the non-EP departmental number what that actually is is the the contingency line item. Um and that will fluctuate based on you know what we do with the revenues. Uh that's basically what that is is the the offset of revenues against expenses.

So those were the last two as far as like department level budgets. I mean, I thought

Are you asking what the committee costs are for? Yeah. So, uh it's it's the board of adjustment and the planning board both are eligible to take um training courses. it's heavily encouraged for them to take some sort of course. Um, usually that's through the league or um, sometimes Deb herself has put on training courses for them as well. It's um, I would say it's definitely a necessity for these committees because you want them to be as educated as they can be with making their decisions. Did anyone go last year?

Well, the for the board of adjustment, we haven't they haven't had a meeting. They didn't have a a board really and the ones that were on the board are already very well-versed. They did not require training. But since then there have been new members been put on this board over the last three months I believe. And it is of my opinion as the clerk that they should definitely attend those trainings. Okay. Um and planning board, do we know what they went to last year? I'm not familiar with what planning board did last year. That would be something I would have to ask Deb. Um I don't believe she's

Yeah, but it in his trainings you can purchase from the school and you host here essentially. Yes. And the attorneys did the training. Yes.

The board of adjustments actually just held a training I believe last month. Okay. Yes. Sorry.

So Ricky, I guess we'll start with the um the fund code 10 revenue projection. So there it's it's a little bit hard to see on the screen. Um that's why the the paper copy may be helpful. Uh this is showing revenues against expenses. Um the very first column beyond the descriptions was where we pulled what the the budget was on July 1st.

Um then what we did in in the second column that says revenue neutral, we took the July 1st revenue budget but applied at the bottom the expenses as they have been proposed today. Um, and you can see in in this particular case where I talked about that contingency fund number would fluctuate. Um, that's the number that's the fund or that's the spot where you account for the difference between revenue and expenses. So going back to July 1's budget uh with what was proposed today, you can see that it shows that negative 450. Now again, we we just

Yeah, I was going to say we we have several uh Okay, that's the only one that was negative in any of the fund balances,

right? We have several different adjustments we've made today. So again, this was a snapshot prior to the meeting. So this this needs to be completely reworked after what we've talked about. Um the other two columns what we tried to show uh budget FY2027 at the 43 cent rate if the taxes remain the same, the revenues we would collect and then the expenses. Um and you can see in that case it uh that extra is falling into that contingency fund. U now again that contingency fund this is all based on the current uh the current allocation of the funds. Um, I think Doug kind of mentioned uh in one of his little wink wink comments that instead of if you if you don't change taxes, instead of 1.5 million sitting in the general fund here, that if you change the percentage allocation, we could bring that contingency fund down significantly, probably around about a million or so, and divert that to fund 30, the the shoreline protection. So,

yeah. or capital. So, one of the options is again this is looking at current tax rate, current everything proposed and again that number will look that that cash number there will look even better with some of the adjustments we've made today. Um, and then just for reference now, as I mentioned in the opening, and I I know uh the mayor asked us to go back and and look at it, uh, the next two columns, we put something kind of in the middle, like uh, we're currently at a 43 cent tax rate. We put in a 40 cent tax rate as a comparison. Um, and then we went back to based on the statute and the spreadsheet uh that revenue neutral 36 cents rate uh where we would be again with the revenues at the 36 cent mark and the expenses as they were proposed today. Um, and just to keep in mind the the contingency line item, uh, we spoke on several different times throughout the the the day and the morning, uh, where we can look at this later and and bring those funds over from another line item if we decide to approve it midyear, budget amendments. That's usually where that's coming from. So we normally I think last year it was budgeted at the beginning um yeah the the beginning contingency number was 624 um and we've used between different projects and different just reallocations of funds we've used at least half of that so just

most of that was GWI I mean I mean that's the math I'm just saying that's the math is GWI so just keep in mind that I I would not suggest depleting the contingency number we can it can fluctuate and it can go down again even at a reduced rate looking at some of the the comments Doug made of diverting more money towards shoreline protections uh keeping something in that contingency because some of these odd projects that we anticipate or we would want to do a budget amendment for that's usually where you're pulling that number from. So that that's kind of and I know there's going to be some adjustments based after today's meeting. Yeah.

Let me let me go to let me go to revenue real quick. If you go down the bottom under the first one, which I didn't realize and and if you could and I understand you guys know how to do this better than I do. I still don't understand how only dropping seven cents um in a 43 cent rate when we had a 40% increase in our base. I I know I'm just looking at mental math and and so if you could at least maybe in the next meeting we've got kind of explain that to us. Um and I think what you've done is you've done the calculation on the property taxes saying I want to raise the same amount of property taxes. What does that rate look like? Right? That that's kind of the way it works

because my mental math was if I if I increase my property by 40% then in theory I should be able to decrease my my property tax by more than whatever this is 10% or something. So, it's just something I'm I can't it I'm having a hard time getting my hands around. Second thing is on the contingency number um under the revenue neutral one right now that actually will be a 550 positive because we took the million dollars out.

So, that's good. The other thing I would have you take a hard look at and this is not just in this one, it's in the other one which is the amount of interest. We have understated interest in every budget forever. We've got $35 million right now budgeted. We've got we've taken we've not used at all any we're not assuming we got any money back at all from FEMA which is 15. Correct. I'm I'm not saying to put in the budget. I'm just trying to look at numbers. Yeah. Right. So, but if we're looking at and and right now from talking to finance guys over there, the the state funds they're looking at is probably three and a half% between three and 4%. Okay.

My calculation on ours is we just budgeted 2% return on that on $35 million because we've got 62 here and I think 120 in another fund. So that's a little over $700,000 in interest. I would have us take a hard look at that because I think for revenue standpoint I think we're understating potential revenue on that. If you would check with the county and and I'm not going to be there a week from Monday. Uh if you could check with them to find out what they are using

uh for that number. I would go with whatever they're using because he he's actually I think on that state committee uh on that and and people realize that when you look at how we're investing our money uh Wayne will tell you this we invest in a state fund because we are only allowed to invest in certain funds just like a lot of municipals or whatever. Um so I that looked low to me. Um we took and it's not in this one if we're going to stick with this. I've got comments on the other on the other two, but what I really liked about this, if we take the million dollars out, yes,

we are now showing at revenue neutral, we still generate a surplus even with all the items that we've put into the budget. That is pretty substantial from my perspective that we could still have a $500,000 surplus and go rate neutral. Um, which I know the person next to me is all in favor of. So, I don't know if anybody had any other comments on on the revenue side. Go ahead. I do.

So, um, and just tell me whether we can do this or not, Wayne. But I'm looking at flat fees. I mean, we're we got to have money coming in. So, we're looking at all the building permits, mechanical permits, electrical permits, and it's showing mostly flat across the board. When was the last time we raised the rates on these? And can we Well, you all have the authority to change the fee schedule as a part of this budget adoption process. Um I don't know the last I was going to call you want to come up chief. I was going to call you up because what you mentioned to me before

which I don't know if it's legal or not but when he when he go ahead.

No no but she's bringing up there's ways to generate money that's not coming out of property taxes. Um, so I know like Boone, they they do a uh short-term rental inspection through the fire department. It's required to have a sticker on the door. I don't know if that's something I don't know the legalities of it. I know they do it there. My home in Florida, I have to pay the fire department every year to come do an inspection on my property. They check smoke ex smoke detectors and all stuff like that. Um, But I don't know the legality of it. So we were talking in general today about other ways for revenue.

Yeah, we got to have multiple revenue streams at some point. Yeah, that's the point. Um but so that's what we were discussing, but I don't know the legalities of it. How they did it, I can find out. I don't know. Um so Boon's got to have some kind of something in their town charter or in their rules, right? You know, and like you know, my home in Florida, it's same. It's a short-term rental and every year I have to pay the fire marshal to come out and do an inspection, right? Whether he shows up or not. Question for you though, what sort of stress does that put on your staffing as far as allocating a new FTE or

Yeah. No, it'll it'll be a commitment, right? Because 90% of our properties down here are rentals and some of them are extremely large. So, you know, it's like when we go do the inspection at Villa or one of those, like we're there for a day and a half, you know, walking around with this point's a valid point. It's a costbenefit analysis. You don't spend $50 to get 20, right? Right. What do we charge them to do that at Villa? Anything now? No, we don't because it's a it's a fire life safety, you know? It's uh as long as they're up to standards and everything's working and stuff like that, like they're doing what they're supposed to be doing. We don't charge them.

So, it affects them in lowering their insurance because they've had a fire inspection. They're not paying us for your services, right? Well, and they don't pay us because service. No, no, they don't pay us because here's what happens. If if if they fail their inspections, they get one free redo to fix all their stuff. If they missed that redo, then we have a schedule fee to start finding them. Okay. All right. But labor-wise, we're just on the hook to do that. Right. Okay. We are mandated by Kip's point is well taken though, and that is it's great to say I'm going to raise money. Right. If it cost me more to raise the money than raising the money or the inconvenience or you're pulling somebody off.

Correct. Can I go back to my original which was building permits, mechanical permits, electrical permits, plumbing permits? We're showing those as flat across the board. We're we're gonna Okay. talked about meeting.

So, do we expect to get that before the budget's passed or not? We do. Okay. All right. Hold on one second. So NC DOT is reimbursing us for grass mowing. Have we increased our charges to them? Not that I am aware of. Not over this past year and I would have to look into I don't know the exact details of that agreement. Uh if it's dictated by the state last year I'm sorry DWI went through that last year.

Okay. So, but they went through it as far as whether our accounting was good or whether our fees were reasonable. Maximum. Okay.

Well, I don't 50,000 for a crosswalk. I think we could look at it again. after the first year you implemented paid parking. Every year since there's been a um a slight decrease. So we don't anticipate in talking to the parking vendor they have not recommended any increase in that. They're using

Yeah. Yeah. They're using county laws which are And it's hard to tell year to date also because a lot of them won't buy until their annual passes until it's a little warmer. Right. Yeah. I'm trying to find that, Laura. I I was looking at that before and trying to figure out the sensitivity around that because I thought it looked low, but you just can't tell because of when the annual passes get done. I was trying to compare it to what we collected so far and it's basically on line with what we're projecting

and we don't have any more fixed assets to sell. Nothing. Okay. We got 10 for a firet truck. Well, we're going to get rid of some cars, right? Have we still need them right now? Okay. But we're anticipating getting something for them, right? on the revenue side. But you know, you just you brought up a really good point. Hey, Chief, your predecessor used to go over the Marine base and get us a bunch of stuff. We still do that. All right.

You guys don't know they What did you get? You got like five vehicles and you turned it into two because you had to cannibalize them because they were so bad. And Alice, the T have we seen any increase in revenue since we started selling t-shirts? But it's it's more of a looked at as a revenue source rebranding and a marketing effort on for the town. Okay. Some of us contributed So I guess my point is are we missing any other revenue streams that we could be looking at?

You need to look at grants. So looking at grants again, financing. Grants, financing. What other revenue streams do we have at our disposal? Yeah, I mean we could we could look into it or study it. I don't have an answer off the top of my head at the moment. Uh as far as additional revenue streams, Okay. So, grants are like our big thing and and interest free loans. We might have missed Bo and we should have asked Carter that as well. The boat, not the fire boat. Oh, he's But I think that's something to bring up with him again. Yeah.

What other revenue streams or other towns that we're missing? Well, the good news he represents so many beach towns. I mean, he he really didn't get into how many towns they represent and stuff now, too. He does on Wasa, too, which I didn't realize. So, he's doing a lot of this modeling for people. And matter of fact, I'm going to reach out to their on their rate structure over there, too. So, okay. You anything else? Okay. Consensus. Um, I would I would like you to look at the uh at the interest. I do think that's understated. Okay. Okay. 720 on 35 million doesn't work for me. It's it's got to be more than that. So, all that's going to do is add to the contingency, Wayne, and that's not going to, you know,

it's it's just a revenue to look at. And then I've got a couple of other comments um on the other funds. What do you have? I have a comment for Wayne. Wayne, I appreciate all the work you do on this, all the work that everyone has done on this. Um I However, I am not happy with the numbers.

I know it's not your fault. Um however, I would like to see a tax rate under 30 cents. Um I just feel that this is unsatisfactory and I will not vote on a to approve a budget that's over 30 cents. Just so everybody knows our as board our responsibility is only really to the taxpayers. This is what we were this is what we were um elected to do was to represent the taxpayers, the people that live here, the people that own property here. And part of that is of course making sure that they have good public protection, having good services. Um, however, we do we we do have quite a bit of money. We're not a poor town. We also have a lot of expenses and there's a way to juggle it. Um, I'm not a numbers person obviously, but um, I would like to see it a lot lower.

Yeah, we we can one more thing also. Sorry. I know Pender County was I just read during the break um they had decided that they were going to hold off on revail but now the tax office is looking into it because they're not sure it's legal since it's statemandated. So they may not be they just brought up to me before. All right. I'm not sure that's legal. So yeah, I was going to say I don't think that they can go back on it. They're at their eightyear mark. They they're not allowed to go back. Uh well, they could have.

And just just going back to the revenue again at her 30 cents. And remember, this is off the top of my head. 30 cents times 2.4 million, right? Should be 7.2 million. And we have 4.2 here and 1.5. And that's $5 something dollars. So I I'm just trying to figure out if we're at 30 cents on 2.4 million billion dollars. Is my math wrong

as to why that doesn't generate and I know it's a calculation, but and and I apologize for bringing this up again, Wayne, but it the math doesn't make sense to me. I'm just trying to get my head around it, especially when she 30 cents. You're looking at the 2.4 billion as a whole and and we calculate that's got other stuff in it. And then we calculate that down. We've we have traditionally used a 96% collection rate. That's fun.

Uh then 60% goes about 60.47 goes to fund 10. Uh 16.28 goes to fund 12. 23.25% goes to fund 30. So the the whole number is spread between the three different funds. And that that's was what Doug was alluding to, right? If the tax tax rate went unchanged,

you could take money that was, you know, instead of 60 60% being uh sent to fund 10, I heard him say 73% or something like that a couple times. So you could divert it toward your beach projects. But yeah, it it is. So whenever whatever tax if you give me a 30 cent tax rate I back into it off of that allocate it the same way and figure out how it looks distributed among the three. And again what what I've noticed that and we'll talk about the next fund. Every single fund that we've got right now shows a surplus. Every single one under this budget. Okay. And my and once we get rid of the last SA payment

next year 1.8 we now have another 1.8 eight in surplus in theory next year once that payment's made. I'm trying to get back to what Conniey's point was, which is we need to get a very good handle on this. But the other thing back to the exact point that you made and that Doug made is in the past when we started doing pennies and I know you didn't do the budget this way. We used to do pennies for the beach fund, it was based upon a tax base that was a little over a billion dollars. Now we're at 2.4 billion. So, if we gave five, I'm making numbers up. If we gave five pennies at on a billion, right, we're going to put $500,000 in that fund. If we're doing five pennies on 2.4, we're pointing $1.2 million in that fund. So, we have to figure out in which fund that should go because this board has the authority to change the allocation between those funds, which is what your point is, right? So if we need more money using it in public safety and we decide that we are not going to do we're not going to build something else but it's got to go into a firet truck, we can do those type of things by reallocating the funds that come in so that our priorities if it's the beach and it's public safety then that's probably where we ought to be focusing our money is on those areas. Those are things we need to talk about as a board to give some context to it. But if you could and and again I'm just and and I I shared with Did I send you that Larry? The stuff that the county sent me the breakdown for town that that we were using

right the valuations because you've got you've got the other personal properties in there too and the 24. Um, but when you look at that, it would just be interesting to see what happens with that because if we are going to generate a a surplus in the $2 to3 million range, we need to take a very hard look at two things. One is what Doug's going to tell us we need, and two is what our tax rate should be. Um, because we've we've been able to generate and Alice, when you came here, how many million did we have? Four or five million maybe. We had the money we had had to hold back on on the USDA loan, but we didn't have money. Well, classic example is the beach project you just did that we didn't have the money to do that, right? So, we're in a completely different position because of the efforts, the refinancing, all the stuff that we did. Um, I'm just saying I think I'm trying to mirror a little bit of what Connie said is our obligation is to the taxpayers and I think we have to be very prudent and conservative to make sure we've got money to do the things we need to do. On the other hand, um, and Kip was there when I talked to the people at Ocean City, remember the question I was asked, why aren't you giving us the money back if you've got that cash? And if we're saying it's for a beach project or it's for a firet truck or it's for something else, that's a different answer than we're just keep holding on to your money. And so, you know, and again, I don't mean to preach, but that's the impact I'm getting from people is they don't really care what our excuses are. They want to know why the taxes went up on their house. Okay? And everybody here has gotten those emails. You have, I have. And you know, I I just think we need to be prudent and understand how much money we've got and how we're using those funds. So, Connie, do you want to add anything?

Just a reminder, it's not our money. It's the taxpayers's money. That's it. Uh, let's go to 12 maybe. All right. real quick and then I'll get off your butt on this one. Um, we've got uh the EOC is on there $300,000, right? Um,

I think as a general concept, I think we need to look into an EOC. On the other hand, I don't think that's a have to do this year. I think um I would look maybe for the police chief and um and town manager in May to talk a little bit about that. Um, but I believe the way that without getting into whether I think that's a great expense or not, in my opinion, the way that the police chief is going about this, um, is a significant savings on everything we've ever looked at in terms of putting this together. Is that fair, Chief? I don't mean to put you on the spot. We were talking about having to buy land, do all those type of things. This would be utilizing on Moss' property, right, to be able to put something there for us with the county. Um, and then in here, uh, the public works thing we've talked about, which is fine. Um, Enslow County fire. I'm sorry. I'm I'm in revenues. I should have gone back to this. Why are we putting $486,000 um in fire tax when we're collecting 510,000? All right. And also, if it stayed at 3 cents, we'd be collecting $720,000 from them. So, I'd like an explanation as to why the fire tax went down when the basis for the fire tax went up by 40%.

Yeah, I don't

I'm just curious because I mean you're again I'm just looking at where we've got revenue. That looks to me like again we don't know what they're going to do and I'll follow up and before we get a budget approved we got to find out what they're doing with that number. Um they have signed an agreement with the volunteer fire departments and they've done it with the um Coastal Carolina school on a funding agreement with the volunteer fire departments. Apparently they've agreed to give them 5 cents of property tax, which I'm not sure how that works within somebody that's not incorporated, but that's not my business. I think it's highly unlikely we'll get 5 cents because that would give us about a million three a year. I will at least be pushing and I think this board will be pushing to maintain at least three cents if we can get that on our new tax base. Um so if I would just say maybe the next one take a shot and see what it looks like for us in terms of revenue. Um and then again, um I like the revenue at the top. Uh ad valum tax is is the what you just talked about before. And also understand that if if the EOC building were to come out this year, okay, and the future capital came out of there, you've got a $650,000 contingency in that fund.

All right. So, even if we do the EOC, we still have a $349,000 contingency built in. So, we have now we are now building contingencies into all of our funds, right? Okay. Yeah. Okay. You know, I like the numbers and I just I just want to make sure that we've got enough coverage in there if we have a storm or something else. On the other hand, when I've got somebody here next to me that's pushing very hard not to have taxes go up. We got to make sure that we we understand our revenues. Right. Right. Anybody else have anything on fund 12? Uh

yeah, while we're here, I just wanted to I know I sent that jumpo stuff out to you guys, but uh thank you. Uh Stephen got back to me about resurfacing the road. Uh here's his email. basically contact NC DOT Enslow County maintenance engineer got back to him confirmed that the road is not on their current 5-year resurfacing plan and noted that he looked at the data and the rating of the road is rated as good and he did mention that they had to come out and uh taking care of some of the uh uh the bridges there that needed the attention back in the fourth quarter. But uh looking at New River Inlet Road being resurfaced anytime soon. Okay. Not it's not happening in five years. Would you guys would you guys do us a favor in your ne next meeting with them?

We don't know where that 10 million came from, right? That came from No. No. But does that mean we're resurfacing the road or we just adding on to it? Does that mean we're just putting a bike lane on? Is that what they're saying is $10 million? You're you're you're saying just leave the road like it is and we throw a bike lane on the sides. I I don't know what she she's got something from them that we went from looking at this as a reasonable project to it went up three and a half times. Is that 10 million including a resurfacing and a bike lane? But they're saying the resurfacing is off. That you're saying the road's not happening. So not anytime soon. No. Why would a bike lane cost 10 million? I'm just saying when you guys are meeting with them, a good question is, hey, you're not doing this. You just told us it's $10 million. Yeah. Are we resurfacing your road? No.

Okay. Like What's the scope, right? Does that make sense to you guys? We'll ask the question. Okay. Thank you. And good good update. Yeah, because um depending on the answer, we may want to rethink the whole bike path thing. I mean, I think it's a great public safety. That's why I brought it up here. Add $100,000 in this fund. I can tell you my first job at a engineering school was at DOT and adding a bike lane onto a road is a disaster because it it's and this island like you what Kip just said is exactly what happens because it separates and cracks

unless you're going to make it completely separate from the roadway. I liked how Kip did the you know it it's going to fall off. It just doesn't work that way.

Thanks. That's excellent Mark. Thank you. Um, and then we got 30, right? I I would like and then I would ask for a consensus. I would like to leave that in there recognizing that it in effect is a contingency for us that can be used on that if we can especially if we can work out something with Anwasa or the county to leave it in there as an item for us to consider understanding that it may not be this year or next year or may not be able to coordinate it with us but I think eventually even though we've got Alice a long-term deal with the county to use the the the um library that to the extent that we can get a better deal done by working with the county, especially if they're looking at doing something there, we might want to pull the trigger on that thing to be able to save ourselves money. And the fact that you're willing that you you you looked at it to put it on their property, as I've told Frankie, we get first dibs. U no, I've been talking to them for three years about getting that property for us. Um, and for the people that don't know, that's the old Plurus building on 210

and there are 400 acres behind there, Chief. That's how much land is behind that thing that you can't see from the road. So, there's a lot of land there, right? Thank you. Consent, is that okay consensus wise? Leave leave it in as an item, but understand we will be working with it. Does that make sense? I'm not happy. Go ahead. No, I'm not happy with it, but um I would begrudgingly leave it in. I think that it is uh I think it's a good idea if we can get way down. Yeah.

917 I I think on future capital that was is that a area of contention or leave it? That's the old budget. That's basically your contingency on this one. It's the same thing that's going to fluctuate as we change potentially for that. No, the beach 150 comes in

the big I think I think the only this side of the bridge, not to give it to Lars, it's a good point. I think I think the consensus is and not to not to step into Conniey's thing is we understand that an EOC is going to be necessary at some point to the extent that we can get it done and get it done cheaper working with somebody and he comes back to us, for example, and says, "Hey, they're kicking in half of this stuff if we do it with them this year, but if we wait till next year, we got to do it ourselves." We would probably consider that as a good business move. I'm just saying leave a a thing in there to make the decision when you come back to us specifically, right, Chief? With with something

where that's when we write a grant for our portion. That's the point. Exactly. All right. Uh now we're on 30. Yes, sir. That one now.

I know. I told you their what do you call it? All right, let me go back to I got to find 30 again. Damn it. I'm hiccoping. But yes. All right, so fun 30. Yeah. All right. So, our beach lobbyist, how much have we gotten out of that person and why are we spending that money? Uh that I mean what's listed in there is their expense. uh the return on what they've done for us. I'd have to look into that. That's not something that I It's TISPC. Okay. That that's paid. We pay a third of that. I know.

And hang on. Right now in the middle of doing this stuff with the Cobra stuff, the idea of walking away from these people was would be a very bad idea. A bad move. I don't I don't know. I I don't know. I don't like paying it either. Just I mean, I don't really, you know, having being a being on that committee and seeing what all it does, uh we not we could not fund ourselves for what we're paying to get funded through that operation. I mean, just like Cobra, you know, Cobra is being worked on through through there also, you know. So, there's a lot of things that uh and and that we're getting benefit from. We're paying 60,000 I think. What are we paying 60,000 a year?

Third, right? And but we're paying lobbyists and we're only paying a third of the lobbyist and but we're paying lobbyists and and and all the other things to make it happen. And and I know that if you don't go there and not a part of it, you don't you don't believe that. But it's bottom line is I' I'd be solely against getting out of test. Let me just say go ahead. I'm not against it, but we wouldn't. She wants to know the value. 10 years. Nobody Nobody tells you what's been going on. That's the problem. Let me We're not in a meeting, but so I can say that.

Let me address this real quickly. Larry knows this. Larry knows I have concerns about doing this through TISPC and not having our own lobbyist. Larry by coincidence will be the head of TISPC next year. Okay. And in the past, I'm looking at Alice. We know when Steve was running that Smith, where was the focus in terms of getting stuff done? It was with Topsel, right? Our guy is going to be running it next year. We're also in the middle of stuff that he's working on right now.

As much as I don't like doing it this way, I would rather have our own lobbyist, I would be against pulling the plug on it until we figure out exactly what we're getting out of them. Does that make sense? And also we're we're meeting, you know, we're going to Raleigh weeks

and we're going to Raleigh and we're talking to we're involved in the uh shellfish uh situation and where we're we're getting and we're we're right in the middle of the area that's getting more more leases than than any place because of moratoriums north and south. And so we're fighting on that. We got a meeting with Carson Smith. We got a we got a meeting with Carson Smith next Monday, a group of us. And there's just a lot of things going on behind the scenes that you can't put a dollar value on. But but the bottom line is and and I I promise you if if if I if I see at any point that I don't think that we're getting our money's worth,

I mean, I'll be willing to pull the plug anytime. I just Does that make sense? I mean, it's just this is one that bothers me because all the lobbying that I have done in my life has been with my own lobbyist and involving me making contributions and attending fundraisers and doing everything else. Having a having three parties work together to figure out who gets the pie doesn't work for me. I want our pie. I don't want their pie. Um, and so I think we just need to take a a look at this. And the value on some of these things could be large for us, but I think at this point, Larry, we don't know until we've played it out. That's right. I mean, you know, I think I think that we need to give it a year.

Give it a year and see see what happens. I mean, if if we get if we get issues to where all of a sudden we don't have, but I'm just telling you, we're helping we're helping the South End and they're helping us and and we all have the same type of problems. And so, I I think it's paying a third of something is better than paying 120% on it and and again I would echo the same thing obviously having been to two meetings and seen right

the the the lobbying work that they are doing um I think we are getting I feel in my two months we're getting bigger return on our investment by participating and and I don't think it's a right now I I I get what you're saying as slice of the pie as far as like shallow draft stuff but as far as lobbying they do lobby specifically for us um and I I deal. Absolutely. I agree. Yeah. You've obviously you've been to it, too. No, it's just the whole thing that that bothers me and I won't go into it again is just simply and I've had this conversation with the county a number of times. You want your own pie. Okay. And the question is how much are we willing to pay for our own pie? That's right. And that's okay. I mean, that's the game, right? But

and I understand the value to it, but to and and I am for it. But to Laura's point, I do wish that we had uh at least a report twice a year from them or something. That's what we're that is that that is a problem. That is truly a problem because I've came come to these meetings the board meetings for years and I have not heard almost no report on whatever happened because it's always one of those consent agenda items and so the good news is we happen to know we know somebody who does the minutes for that commission. So now I mean Kip is doing

I'd be happy to to uh once they get approved to to forward them to the board um and the the town manager doing the manage now for it and and soon to work the uh would you guys No, I would actually like the lobbyists to zoom with us once in a while to tell us what they're doing on our You need to come to our meeting because every every meeting every meeting uh we meet every other month and every meeting our lobbyists are on screen or in person And they're telling us exactly what's going on. So all you've got to do is come to the meeting. No, at this meeting. So it's part of why because then then they're gonna charge more. They're working for the three towns. Why don't you just go to the meeting? It's not just for me. It's for the taxpayers to see.

Well, they could it watch it, right? But if it's on our board meeting and they do a presentation, then everybody gets to see it at that. I I think Larry, if they're willing to do it, I think it's something we could probably ask them to. I I I hear what you're saying and I see a benefit in that. I think if if it's not going to inconvenience them to talk about our specific projects and not the entire tops or all they're going to do is tell you what a great job that Larry's doing. No, I I we do that all the time. No, but Kim Kip makes a very good point and that is the answer to the people here probably don't want to hear about Vitex. But if if there's an update on the Cobra stuff,

having them specific issues makes sense. I 100% agree with that. They're working for us and I think once a year you pay me what they're paying. I think I think we overlook it and I think that's why it's important that you bring it up. Please make sure you're using microphones by the way. You are Kip. Good job everybody else. It's in our ear and I think we'll be able to move forward and I think that's a good suggestion Laura and I'll

All right. Well, not to speak not to speak badly of of the not around anymore people, but it it was kind of a one-sided scenario and it was not intentional, I don't think, but that's just the way it ended up. But it is definitely broadened out at this point in time and I think you'll see a change in what happened in Marine Corp. Um, back back to revenues. Um, Wayne, wait a minute. Are we finished with 30? I want 30. That's what I'm looking at is the revenues at 30.

Okay. Um, one I don't understand is in the requested budget under CA county grant you've got one 150 but in the 4340 and flat rate you got zero. Is that just because somebody didn't complete the schedule? What? You've got it in the budget.

Revenue neutral. Okay. Request is 150. And see we need to put that back. If there's going to be an issue with that, I'll I'll talk to them again, but they've committed. We were late in filing it. You've you've got it in there for them right now. And Wayne, if you want to check with them, and I'll check with Tim again, but he's committed to give us the money. I'm just saying, let's put it in the budget as a revenue source for us. Um, committed verbally award letter. I I haven't seen any commitment saying that they're going to give it to us. I'm happy to put it in there, but I'm putting something in the revenue line that like legally is not confirmed that they're officially giving us the money. I just want to make sure what you're telling me to do.

All right. I'll tell you what. Um I will ask I've talked to the finance guy who said it's on his desk. I've talked to the commissioners who say it's going to be approved. I will see if I can get something getting it moving as fast as I can and then you can put it in. Great. Okay. Great.

All right. Then my favorite thing, interest income 125. You know what my issue on on the interest income is? Um, trying to think of the other ones I had. I think that's And again, what I like about this one is if everybody drops down under revenue neutral and takes a look at that last um number, future projects fund. All right, $2.4 million we now have as a contingency in that fund in addition to the other ones we've seen. And um what uh Alice talked about is the last saw payment is May. So that's done. What was the other one that we talked about in there? Is there is that it for the SA payments?

Y right. So when you look at that 1836 that's in there, you don't need to change it. This is a heads up for the board. When that if if everything in this schedule, revenue, expenses, and everything stays consistent, not next year, but in the next year. This is for Doug. You're going to add back 1.8 million to that 2.4. And now we've got That's why I was asking him. I couldn't figure out where he got his three from, Wayne. Yeah.

Okay. That didn't make any sense to me given the schedule that you've got together. Um, he looked to me like he's about a minute and a half short for what was in the beach fund. But if everybody understands what I'm saying, 24 under revenue neutral is the future projects. That's the money being put away. Um and then one 1.836 is the last payment that we have to make and then we will be out of all debt except for the firehouse and the fire truck. Fire truck. Yes.

Right. So that frees up $1.8 million in revenue for us after next year. So when we're forecasting that going forward, we're now looking at much more of a surplus in that fund. Yes. Than we're seeing after that that final payment. Yes, sir. Okay. I just want to make sure because that's we talked about how much money's got to go in the beach fund. And when you look at your top number at 54, all right. And you start looking at the other stuff that's kind I would call it more incidental. Um that creates a lot more room in there for what we want to do beachwise. So thank you. Yes, sir. And I will not bring any more issues up on revenue.

It's all good. Mark, you got anything? So that s Hey. Hey. We're talking about our last one on that is May. It'll be done this. No. No. Is that There's one next year. December. It's December. So that's why it's in the budget for the one that's happening in May though. Don't we have one a payment we're making in May? Yeah. But that one that's the financing, right? I believe that's the other one that that you didn't get carried forward. If you look at the very first line, right? Uh the 1721. Got it.

But we didn't carry it because that one. But the the 18 is May. I mean, now you got me saying December and then we're done. And then we're done. Okay. The 18 calendar year we'll be out of debt on Yes. But it takes us into the next fiscal year. That is awesome. That is really awesome. Okay. So the to the 1.8 is the one that'll be paid off in December. Yes. Everything's done and the 1.7 is paid off next month. Yeah. That's why we didn't carry it forward into the future budgets. All right. Maybe I'll bake a cake for that. That's unbelievable. Unbelievable. Yes. be that clear of debt.

Although I don't know about the 0% interest stuff. We have to think about refinance that one or something. What is the interest rate on the firehouse? It's like six or something. Yeah, it was six roughly, but bad. I think we're pretty close. Yeah. So, if we're done with the departments and the revenue sheets, uh, the last item, which I'll maybe defer to Alexis, was scheduling. I don't know if I feel like we've gotten through everything we had to present here. So, I don't know if a meeting tomorrow is necessary, but that that's a call that you all

I would say from my perspective because you've got work that you have to do to to us. I don't think you're going to have I don't know. Are you working? Are you going to send me something at 10 o'clock again tonight, young lady? No. All right. We are not working tonight. If that's a case, then I I I don't know about how you all feel. I would like to see what the numbers look like when we rerun these things. Okay. And to get Doug's input on some of this stuff. Does that make sense to everybody rather than meeting again tomorrow? Yep. Yeah. We can rerun these numbers and send them out in a couple days. That's right. Are you off tomorrow? Is that it? I might sleep an hour or two. Have

fun, man. All right. That's right. So, just for the record, Except Larry. Larry, we're meeting tomorrow at 9:00. Make sure you're here. Larry, if you show up, I'll have for coffee. While you're here, you can sign checks. We're wrapping up now. We're wrapping up now. We're wrapping up.

All right. I just I just want to personally say thank you to Wayne and Norin and Alice, all the department heads. Appreciate you guys. A lot of time, energy put into these things. a lot of numbers looks at dyslexia mistakes get made. Thank you for your composure and your patience and appreciate what you guys do. Thank you for ditto. Same. And I'm really not this mean. Ditto. Yes, she is. And thanks. Thanks you guys as well. Thanks guys. I mean, you know, we got a lot of new board members and it doesn't hurt with some of you guys being new too to really dig into the budget and understand it and so ask questions of us too and if you have other ideas,

you know, please bring them to the board. So, this doesn't have to be a one-way conversation. Thank you. Whatever they said. Beautiful. Thank you, Larry. Just for clarification on my end. Um, so no budget meeting tomorrow except for for Larry. um the additional budget sessions that other Larry um had created, I didn't know if you guys had a chance to look over those. What are those? Um the first additional budget sessions uh that are being proposed if needed are April 21st and 22nd. Um that doesn't work for me. Well, it does work for It doesn't It doesn't work for for Connie and I. It would be in Washington.

Okay. So the other ones what's what's the one in May we've got what's the next yeah I would look at something later in April um we got that was the last week of April is 27th 28th 29th 30th gone so is

correct yes um I I know that there will be meetings that others won't be able to attend just because the way the cookie is crumbled this summer. Um, but you know, these are for your feedback and so if if you guys are wanting another session, um, I do realize some people may not be able to make it. We can hold that to show you the new That's fine. If you could check on Doug's availability, not just on his availability, but when he's going to get us something. Okay. All right. Um, my take was he he was he was looking for us first,

right? No, no, but I'm talk what what I'm saying though is if he says if you give me the stuff on May 5th, I can get you something back on May 15th. There's no point in having a meeting on May 12th. It's just to make sure that he can give us whatever we need back from him. Usually about May 13th. What? May 12th or 13th? I was making dates up. Oh, I was talking generally if my my point is and I did very bad job of saying it is

if we give him the information he needs and Wayne needs and we've given him, you know, a draft budget and it takes him a week to get that information into the model, it doesn't make any sense for us to schedule a meeting inside of that week because I think we'd want to see what Doug has to say. I would anyway. Does that make sense to everybody? Okay. So, the other the next meeting that we have technically then would be our board meeting in May, which could also be an update on some of this stuff as well. I know you're not there, but at least there's a quorum, right? We would scratch the plan for that to be the public hearing date for the proposed budget. It's gonna I I don't think that we're going to be ready.

Well, unless unless we just put together based on what we've heard today and we call that a proposed budget and advertise that public hearing and we check the block of having a public hearing on a proposed budget. Yeah. It doesn't is not necessarily the proposed is not the budget.

No, I understand here here's a concern I've got on that is I I think we need to postpone that for two different reasons. One is it's already been brought up as whether Pender can do what they're talking about doing. So we don't know what Enso is going to do. the farther along we are for us to do some research on what the other towns are doing. Larry, to your to your point about the sales tax and about what they're doing property tax- wise, I think the other towns, we already know what Surf City is talking about doing. Holly Ridge will have suggested something that they're going to do. I'm guessing Jacksonville would too. You were talking about doing the

the background stuff to find out what people are doing because that's going to help you a lot in terms of what you just modeled for us, right? if everybody's gone revenue neutral or nobody's gone revenue neutral, that's going to affect what you're going to tell us because you mentioned to me if you if you wanted to wait till June the 28th um to make sure to adopt, you know, I'm not saying to do that, but I would be much more comfortable in a public hearing having something that we feel is much more of a finished product in terms of what that rate is. Would the board feel more comfortable then pushing back the public hearing until the June meeting and then holding a public then right or holding a special meeting? You guys okay with that? Cuz then we have meetings in the middle too.

There there's if x amount of time that that public hearing needs to be circulated. Okay. And for us to hold it. Um but going forward after that, you should be able to hold a special meeting for the budget. What date is that? Would you remind me? Which date is our meeting? It's on June 3rd. June. Okay. Oh, that's we're having it at our regular meeting. It's a regular meeting. We would hold that up. Everybody's going to be there, right? Everybody's in in for June 3rd. And then we can create a special meeting later in June to officially adopt the budget. If we're circulating stuff in the meantime,

um I liked what they what we're talking about putting it on that June 30th date so that we can see the dust has settled at that point. I know it's the very last minute, but yeah, I know. I know. I I I mean, if we could push it as late as possible, that would be my recommendation. I think that I think to his point, that makes sense with one with one quick caveat, and that is as long as you guys are able to say to us, it's only going to take me 24 hours to tell you what the rate ought to be, that works. But if you've got to run the models and do everything else to give us what the rate should be because I think we've got to give them some sense of we want we know where you're going to come on the rate.

Okay. We should be within a few cents I'm thinking in terms of the rate. I think your point is if we're going to nail something down do it as close to that at the end so that we might have a range as to what we want to do on the tax rate. We might be able to drop it. Would So are we saying that we would have no budget meetings in May? I don't think that's appropriate to not have any. I think you need to have another budget. Oh yeah, that me too. I am not saying don't have a budget meeting in May. What I'm saying is for the public hearing

which we would you know you want you want your the budget you're presenting at your public hearing to be as ready as you can for because you want to maintain that transparency and stuff. Um, but we can push the the public hearing itself into the June meeting. Okay. Again, you're working on a tight schedule at this point because we need to get that out in the next 30 days. Okay. But you should be able to still hold that public hearing. Lexi, hang on, Lexi, once you do this. I have no problem with having a budget meeting in May. You're gone. Okay. What I would suggest you do is why don't you circulate some date? The 13th. It's on the agenda for everybody right here. It can't be before or after. I'm sorry.

If you would like, I can schedule us to do a budget session in the morning. Oh, we moved that. Okay. I have on the 6th. We've moved it to the We moved to that at the meeting that we adopted. That's why it didn't make any sense to me. All right. So, 13th and then if the board is comfortable, I'm more than happy to create a special meeting the morning of our regular session for a couple hours in the morning if you want or after. I I think I would split that and see if there's another date. Okay. Oh, I was going to say do a quick one because if we if we have everybody here in the audience and we're going through all the budget stuff, I think it's going to get we could have a very long meeting and not a productive meeting.

The public would not have comment on the sessions. Well, that's why I think if we did it after, you also mentioned afterwards if I can hold it after if you guys would like to break for lunch and then come back because that way and then if there's any people that want Well, I don't know if starting at one would allow everybody to have enough time. But two separate meetings. Okay. Yeah. Right. Two separate meetings. So, how about we do we'll do I would probably say three just in case the meeting goes long. Let's do we can do 3 to five. Perfect. The 13th of May. Yes. Lunch and dinner are not provided.

Yes. Weird. The June 3rd will be a regular board meeting and on that agenda will be a public hearing which by general statute is required for us to hold and then after that we will hold a special meeting um later in June to be determined to adopt all this out and you'll make sure for you know you'll make sure we meet all you will make sure we meet all the notice requirements. on those. But the meeting is being discussed for the end of the month in June. We do not have a date.

We do not have a set date for it. I will send out dates um later. What I may do is I may just add to your after getting dates from you guys, I may just add to the May agenda an amendment to your regular calendar. Um that way we're not having to notice. That's a good idea. Um Okay. And that won't be an issue. Okay. Okay. So, the May meeting board, it's just going to be two days. It's it's exactly the same day. It's just going to be two separate meetings on the same day.

But to Connie's point, I don't want to wait till the 30th for that last I was going off of what? Yes. No, but you want to get us close to that because which would be like absolutely people need to work on things. We got to look for the only difference between us Boy Scouts Boy Scouts have leadership in here. Yeah. We can adopt Well, you can't adopt there. You have to adopt 29th or 30th. It's got to be before the meeting. Okay. Lexi, do we need a motion to close or is I mean, you can just say goodbye. It's okay. That's what I thought. Got anything else, guys? Anybody got anything else to say? Wayne's like, I've been beat up enough today. I don't need anymore.

It took two It took two of us to keep up with all the notes. So, we got plenty to do to we don't need to. I said I will take oneot. She said motion to adjurnn by all in favor.